


Rotten Plants Make Strong Nest

by dancinbutterfly



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: 2000s, 30-Somethings, Alternate Universe - 2000s, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Alternate Universe - Parents, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Beach Sex, Canonical Alternate Universe, Cohabitation, Conflict Resolution, Cuddling & Snuggling, Disassociation, Domestic, Domestic Boyfriends, Dysfunctional Family, Established Relationship, Family, Family Feels, Family Issues, Fighting Kink, Gay Parenthood, Gay Parents, Getting Together, HIPAA, Happy Ending, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, Kid Fic, Kissing, Literal Sleeping Together, Living Together, M/M, Martial Arts, Mentor/Protégé, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parenthood, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Queer Families, Queer History, Relationship Discussions, Sexual Identity, Shower Sex, Sleeping Together, Slurs, Surrogacy, Tags Contain Spoilers, Tags May Change, Talking, Terminal Illnesses, Verbal Abuse, discussion of terminal illness, fighting as flirting, medical office
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:22:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26788897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: Sid's demand that Johnny have kids for his mother's sake is insane and infuriating. What kind of arrogant prick thinks they can buy grandkids anyway?Johnny can barely wrap his mind around the idea, least of all because he and Daniel have definitely never talked about having kids. That's just not something guys like themdo. Never being parents is just part of the everyday cost of them getting to be together and something like happy.Right?
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso & Mr. Miyagi, Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence, Johnny Lawrence & Laura Lawrence, Johnny Lawrence & Mr. Miyag, Johnny Lawrence & Sid Weinberg, Johnny Lawrence & The LaRusso Clan
Comments: 309
Kudos: 252





	1. Lets Do Lunch

**Author's Note:**

> This is idea came to me as a result of Sid giving Johnny that check in the Pilot in Laura's blessed memory AND THEN JOHNNY ACTUALLY USING IT to get something he wants. This story is going to play with that concept while exploring late 90s/early 00s queerness and queer parenthood. Period typical and antiquated terms and attitudes will be appear but I promise, this is gonna a story with a happy ending.

Sid finds Johnny at work.

It’s a closed site and no one’s supposed to be there who isn’t part of the crew or a member of management. Coming off the project, hard-hat in hand, to find his stepfather standing there with the powdery yellow dirt and wood dust tainted his otherwise immaculate Brooks Brothers suit is a fucking terrible sign. And on a Friday too.

Shit.

He’d really been having a good day otherwise.

“Let’s go to lunch, kid,” Sid says, loudly, before Johnny can even begin to formulate an escape.

Oscar punches him in the shoulder. “Hey, Lawrence, you getting some sugar?”

Martin laughs loud behind him. “Oh shit. Yo, who’s gonna tell the ball and chain?”

“If you wanna, that’s all you. I’ve seen them fight.” Oscar hums the opening bars of Kung-Fu Fighting and cackles with the kind of glee that only comes from quality shit talk.

“Oh fuck you both,” Johnny grumbles at them, feeling just the tiniest bit of steam released at the mention of Daniel.

Yeah.

Daniel.

He just has to get through this union mandated break then four more hours then he can go home and screw his brains out. Or beat him up. Or both. It’s practically the same thing for them. Steeled by the thought he meets Sid’s disdainful gaze and tries to give just as much back. He probably fails but fuck the crusty son of a bitch anyway.

What was it the Old Man always liked to say about balancing? Johnny couldn’t fucking remember. It’s easier to reach that Japanese breathing shit he and Daniel are so into and a few long inhales and slow exhales help him sound almost civil when he says

“I’m good, thanks. Brought my own from home.”

Sid snorts. "I wasn't asking. Get a move on, you little shit, I don't have all day."

And Johnny does? He gets an hour for lunch and it's sacred and Sid is fucking profaning it.

"Yo Johnny," Martin begins, taking a step forward, which is a lot because Martin is a big guy. Really big. He's the scary kind of big that freaks people who don't actually know how to fight out. Actually, he probably he could be a stunt double for the guy from the Green Mile only he'd never shave his stupid mustache off.

Yeah, Johnny appreciates the gesture. But Sid's his problem. And he really, really doesn't want to Martin to hear what Sid might say about him if Sid gets going.

"It's cool. I'm gonna-" He shrugs and jerks his chin. They make small sounds of understanding that are nothing like that warm amusement of earlier. Family is such shit but everyone's got their own special smell.

When the reach Sid's car, a silver Audi, presumably because he is a douchebag, Johnny stops. "Can we just get this over with now?"

There's a robotic beep as the remote on Sid's keychain unlocks the doors, despite the fact that they are standing right next to the damn thing. "Get in the car."

"Sid-"

Sid doesn't even hesitate. "Stop embarrassing me and get in the goddamn car."

He gets in and he hates himself for feeling chastised as he folds himself into the seat. He's an adult. Why does he even give a shit what Sid says anymore, about anything, but especially how Johnny behaves?

"Keep your filthy feet off my dashboard."

Johnny is thirty-three fucking years old. He's is thirty-three motherfucking years old. That is a grown ass man. He doesn't put his feet on the dashboard of anyone's car but Daniel's because he's not a fucking kid anymore. He shifts in his seat, leans agains the door, and rests one boot against the glove compartment with a solid thunk.

A smear of orange muck streaks across the perfect plastic paneling and Johnny smiles at it. Beautiful. A true masterpiece. If only he had a camera.

"Degenerate. You never fucking change."

"What can I say. I've been practicing authenticity." That's some pure Daniel bullshit, coming from years of dragging Johnny out to spar with the Old Man and out to the few LA clubs where there's guys like them who suck dick but aren't chicks about it. Authenticity's a big thing, for Daniel, and sincerity. Johnny just wants to fucking live life without getting crushed.

"You wouldn't know authenticity if it bit you in the ass," Sid snipes.

"Sure I would. Wanna see the teeth marks he left?"

The repulsed look on Sid's face makes Johnny grin like a shark. Good. He didn't get to strike Sid first but he can still strike that motherfucker hard, right where it hurts.

He doesn't talk about his life with Daniel to people.

The guys Johnny works with full-time onsite at Valley Restoration and Construction know. He's been with Valley R&C for three years and after three months of working and drinking with Oscar and Martin and Javi and Kyle he learned about respective their sweet lesbian aunts and sick gay brothers and dead tranny sisters and how the guys are still tight with them or miss them and kill for them or would take a bullet for them and how Johnny need to watch his fucking mouth. It came out in pieces but after awhile he’d figured out it was safe to actually bring Daniel to an unoffical Labor Day cookout. He'd been a hit because Daniel was a charmer and great with the wives and kids and the guys were ride or die like you have to be when you work with dangerous equipment in dangerous places. And the Cobras knew, because they were there, when it all came to a head at the reunion.

But those guys, they were all looped in, a part of his circle. He can talk to them about his life in those insane couple "we" terms. "We spent the holidays with the family,” and "we're looking for a new place,” and “we’re having a dumb fight, I don’t wanna talk about it,” and "we're doing real good, thanks” and all that shit. But he doesn't talk about his home life in detail and he definitely doesn’t talk about his sex life and he abso-fucking-lutely does not talk about how he feels about Daniel. Not with anyone. Except Daniel.

But Sid? Sid fucking hates that Johnny's queer. It makes his blood boil. And Johnny's spent a lot of time at Miyagi-do. He's getting a lot of that zen shit. But deep down, in his bones, he's always gonna be a cobra and for the enemy, his real enemies, he's got no fucking mercy and probably never will.

So yeah, he won't share private pieces of Daniel because that's his, and he's greedy and selfish and probably too fucked up to handle it. But he'll use being with Daniel to mess with Sid. Any day of the goddamn week.

"About that."

"About what?"

"About you being a fairy. Shut up for a second will ya?" Sid pulls a sharp u-turn that makes Johnny's stomach flip and hangs a hard right into a Carl's Jr. He cuts in front of a Toyota minivan in the drive through and orders two cheeseburgers and two cokes, never mind what Johnny might have actually wanted for lunch, which was the leftovers from the fried pork and rice cat-soup-dawn thing Daniel had made last night that was in the fridge at the site. He nearly spills the Coke Sid shoves at him as he takes an equally hard left into a a parking spot. Johnny sighs and begins to unfold his burger but Sid stops him.

"Don't eat in my car."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Bad enough you got mud all over. I don't need you getting grease on everything too."

"This is my fucking lunch hour!"

“Then shut up and listen so we can finish this quick.”

Sid stares blankly out the windshield at the highway for a long beat. His hands fist on the steering wheel and Johnny waits. When he was a kid, he’d question, needle, be a general shit. He’d do whatever he could to get a rise out of Sid once he learned that he was never going to get anything positive from him.

But Sid has done him the courtesy of mostly staying the fuck out of his life since Johnny pulled his shit together the last couple of years. He doesn’t seek Johnny out. Johnny does likewise. So for Sid to come to him, at work, means there’s something big.

Johnny reaches up to the Jesus handle above the window and wraps his fingers around it in a tight fist. The leather is smooth under his fingers, high quality, of course.

He doesn’t want to ask but, shit, he has to.

“So is, uh, is Mom okay?”

A muscle flexes in Sid’s neck as his jaw clenches. “She’s as well as can be as can be expected,” he says through clenched teeth. “She’s not getting any better. She’s never getting any better.” Sid is stricken as he says this. And that, that right there, is why Johnny’s always had a hard time with Sid. This asshole, in his own way, really does love his mom. He’s never known if she loves him back or if she’s just in it for the security but he loves her and he does the best he can for her, even if he’s never done shit for Johnny.

“She was fine when I saw her Sunday.” Johnny offers.

“Bullshit. She’s dying in slow motion and the sooner you both admit it, the better off we’re all gonna be.”

Johnny doesn’t want to think about that. He doesn’t want to think about how frail she’s been for the last couple years, how frail she still is. She was thin and fragile but she’d looked bright across the table at brunch. Things were okay.

“She doesn’t have much time and you can’t keep dicking around. Bad enough you’ve dragged her through hell since you shacked up with that little faggot-“

“Don’t you fucking talk about him like that.“

“-even after everything we did for you. She’s been better than you deserve, always has been so it's time for a come to Jesus talk about what you owe me. And what you owe her.”

“I don’t owe you shit.”

“You owe me for ten years of a roof over your head and tolerating all the crap you threw at me. You owe me more than you can imagine. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about Laura because you’re gonna pay me back by paying her back. That goddamn simple.”

“And what's that?"

One beefy hand uncoils from around the wheel and digs into the breast pocket of his suit. He pulls out a rectangle of paper and shoves it into Johnny's chest, much like he'd shoved the burger at him. Johnny fumbles for it and gapes down at the shiny leaflet for Premier Pacific Fertility Clinic with its soft blues and warm greens and its picture of a smiling pretty pregnant woman with blond hair being held from behind by a poindexter looking dude. 

His brain is nothing but static as he stares at it. 

"What the fuck is this, Sid?"

"It's you, manning the fuck up. You wanna be a fairy, fine, I can't stop you, but you're going to give your mother some goddamn grandkids. It's the only thing she wants in this miserable world."

"Are you kidding me?"

Sid sighs and rolls his eyes. It's the kind of impatien annoyance Johnny saw a lot growing up. Why can't you just get it already, that expression wants to know. How fucking slow are you, that you can't keep up? Johnny hates that it still makes he feel stupid. "Look, if you're worried about your little contracting job not covering the costs, don't. I'll pay for it, just like I pay for everything. I'll even sweeten the deal, take care of things so you can handle things once the brat shows up, get you set up, expenses and extra. All you have to do is just show up and-" He makes a liver spotted fist and jerks off in the air. Johnny feels so angry he wants to throw up. "I got you an appointment for two weeks from today. Time's on the back. You're going to be there fifteen minutes early."

Johnny clenches his hand into a fist around the leaflet, the expensive paper crumpling satisfyingly under his grip. "The fuck. I am."

Sid shifts in his seat to face Johnny and his face is contorted in the kind of ugly fury Johnny hasn't seen on anyone since the All Valley Tournament in '84, when Kreese tried to kill him. It's not the same as it was that night, when Sid leans over the gear shift into his space, so close his nose is six inches from Johnny's, in the sunshine, in the parking lot of Carl Jr's. Johnny isn't scared of Sid. He's thirty-three and he can take down guys Martin's size without breaking a sweat and Sid is an out of shape geriatic with a bad back. He is not scared. Except that Sid has always been a force that had power over him, the way Kreese had, only Sid is still here where Kreese has been gone for years thank fuck. Sid this close makes Johnny feel like a kid again when he grabs Johnny by the arm with one hand and sticks the index finger of his other in Johnny's face, just like he used to and says "Now you listen to me."

It's feeling like a kid that makes his mouth dry and his throat feel blocked, that forces him to swallow before he can say clearly and firmly, "Let go of me."

Sid doesn't let go of him. He yanks on his arm, just a little, like did when Johnny was too loud or too weird or too anything as a little kid, before Kreese taught him how to break out of a hold. "You listen to me, you little shit. You haven't listened to her cry over how you'd be all alone when she dies or she'll never get to dance at your wedding or cuddle to her grandbabies or how any of it." He jabs with the finger and Johnny flinches back against the window. "You haven't been there. I have." Johnny reaches behind him, hand searching blindly for the handle. "So you're gonna go and you're gonna smile real nice for the doctors and you're gonna make your mom a real pretty kid she can spoil for the time she's got and you're gonna thank me for it every step of the way because she is your mother and she needs this and because I fucking told you to. You got that?"

Pay dirt, at last, Johnny gets a grip on the door handle and yanks. The door swings open behind him and only years of core training keeps him from falling backwards. He twists out of Sid's grip and the car, landing awkwardly but free, on his ass on the asphalt. Free. Finally, he can breathe. 

Catching his breath is enough time to realize how goddamn angry and hey, that's neat, horrified he is.

"Fuck you! You can't just- you can't buy a fucking grandkid, Sid. Just... fuck you." 

Sid doesn't seem phased in the slightest. "Two weeks. Appointments at three. Get there early. Hell, the press says they're faggot friendly so you can even bring the Princess of Newark if you want. I don't give a shit. Just show up, Johnny, I'm fucking warning you." Sid doesn't wait for Johnny to respond, yanking the door shut as soon as he's spoken his piece and pulling out of the space. 

Johnny shouts obscenities after the Audi as it drives off then sighs. Fucker took the goddamn burger with him on top of stranding him off site. Fucking wonderful. So much for lunch hour.

He climbs to his feet and makes his way into the Carl Jr.'s to use a phone because he's gonna need someone from the site to come get him. Anger and disgust roiling through him with nowhere to go, he shoves his hands in his pockets a few steps from the door and pauses as the paper leaflet crinkles in protest. Shit. He still had it. Why did he still have it? 

He yanks open the door and walks to the nearest trashcan pushing open the flap to send the offensive thing to the dumpster hell where it belongs but he freezes, staring at it. It's insane, the whole thing. Sid shouldn't have even considered it, let alone demanded it of him. But here it is, in his hand. Real. This has happened. He's not crazy; he's holding proof. And the poindexter in the picture reminds him, weirdly, of Daniel, even though they don't look anything alike really. 

God, does Daniel need to hear about this, so he can be half as indignant as Johnny is right now. Johnny can't imagine not telling him about this whole shitshow as soon as he sees his dumb face tonight. This little piece of paper would make explaining everything easier.

So, he'll hang on to the leaflet. For dramatic effect or whatever.


	2. Boyfriend Shirt

Johnny gets home before Daniel, which is standard. He empties his pockets onto the coffee table and makes his way to the shower. Their bathroom is a dingy crowded place. Razors, toothbrushes, cups, pill bottles of Advil, Tylenol and a few other things scatter the sink they share, along with the half a dozen hair products and blowdryer Daniel uses before he leaves in the morning because “Some of us have to look presentable at our jobs, Johnny.” Johnny grins at the can of Aquanet that’s an exact twin to the one Lucille’s got in her medicine closet as he drops his shirt, pants and boxers on the floor and climbs into the shower. He wants to wash this day off him. He hadn’t been able to get back into the swing of things after Kyle picked him up. Nothing had gone right, everything off kilter and out of place until he’d finally resigned himself to carrying equipment like he was an apprentice again. It was bullshit.

One of the few good things about having fifty neighbors in this shitty building was that the place a tank to match so the hot water never ran out. Johnny could and would stand under the spray for hours, letting the heat melt out tension and knots from work and practice and arguing and weird strains from good sex.

He lets himself sink into the rhythm and warmth of the spray now and zoning out with his forehead pressed against the tile. It’s easy here to push away memories of the way Sid’s hand had felt wrapped around his tricep, how bright his eyes had glittered up close. It’s harder to stop thoughts of what Sid had offered, the promise of his mother’s smile despite this hateful illness, the chance at a kid with his honey hair or maybe Daniel’s laughing brown- no.

No.

He just needs to get under the hot water and get the muck of this day off him. Breathing steam in through his nose and out through his mouth just like the Old Man had taught him until everything goes quiet again. That’s better. That’s all he needs after this day.

At least until the plastic rings holding up the shower curtain clink against the metal rod and yank him out of that blank space.

“What the fuck?”

“It’s Norman Bates,” Daniel announces, stepping into the shower, grinning like an absolute asshole. “I’ve been watching you through a hole in the wall and now that I’m all hot and horny, I’m going to stab you.”

Johnny glances back over his shoulder and down then raises an eyebrow. No stabbing yet, although there is a promising sign of interest headed in that direction.

“Oh fuck you, Johnny, I just got home. Give me a second to deliver.” He reaches out and his smile somehow gets even bigger as his hands land on Johnny’s hips.

He steps in to press his mostly dry chest against Johnny’s dripping chest. He ducks in around to where Johnny’s twisted to look at him, close and absolutely nothing like Sid had been as their noses brush. “Hi.”

Johnny can’t help the sigh that claws its way out of him. Daniel does this to him, makes him feel things, big things, everything. With his arms wound around his stomach now, Johnny can lean back and be held and for one fucking second, things are easy. He’s safe.

God, he still doesn’t really know what to do with being safe half the time. He’s a shit the rest of the time but Daniel can read him. That’s part of what makes him safe and after all this time, he’s stopped second guessing himself every single second. He can just meet Daniel, tip forward for a soft kiss and reply “Hi yourself,” and not panic at the fact that Daniel hasn’t let him go and doesn’t seem to want to. That’s something he can do now. And that’s a good thing.

It is.

Daniel hums happily against his cheek and his tongue darts out, licking away a stream of water pouring down Johnny’s jaw. Johnny shudders and Daniel hums again in approval, tracing the same path again with the bridge of his nose. “How was your day?”

“Shit.”

“That sucks.” Lips on is neck, hands spread across his stomach, open and strong. “We should do something to improve it.”

“You got any ideas?”

“One or two. Hey,” Daniel nudges under his ear with the side of his face even as his right hand moves to a promising place. “I love you.”

Johnny hates it when he does that, just says that soft shit out of nowhere. It makes every nerve in his body crank into red alert, screaming that there’s danger here, that he’s weak for letting it happen and that something could go wrong at any second.

He hates how fucking terrified, how flat out uncomfortable it makes him feel to hear it, no matter how many times it happens. No matter how much he likes to hear it. No matter how much he loves Daniel back. And he does. He loves Daniel back so much it makes him kind of angry sometimes, that anyone on earth gets to do this to him, make him feel this way.

He’s trying. And after a few seconds of agony where he can’t breathe and everything is tight and awful the fist on his heart lets go and everything feels good. Daniel feels good. Loving Daniel feels good. He can sink into the touch and let himself feel pleasure without it hurting him.

He reaches back and grips Daniel’s neck, pulling him closer. “Yeah. Yeah, same.” He squeezes, tight, on the wet hair and soft skin and Daniel makes a noise that’s low and hot and rumbles in his chest like a purr. It’s not the words back but Johnny’s said it before, a couple times. Daniel knows that this is what he can do.

Daniel can see him trying. He appreciates effort more than result and no one else in Johnny’s does and so that’s enough. He gets to be enough, just like he is, so long as he doesn’t stop trying.

Johnny turns a little further so he can get at Daniel’s mouth. He tastes like the shower water and just Daniel and Johnny loves him so fucking much, shit, he really does. It’s awful how much he loves him and he really doesn’t want to think about it anymore.

“Enough mushy shit. You gonna fuck me or what?”

“You’re a genius. My man’s a Rhodes scholar.”

Johnny grabs the good silicone lube off the soap dish and shoves it back at Daniel. “Shut the fuck up and get in me already, asshole.”

“Anything for you, handsome.”

And then there’s not anymore talking. There’s just Daniel’s hands on him him, slippery and solid, lips and teeth in the back of his neck, and then his cock inside him deep and thick and mind-destroying. It took a long time for Johnny to admit that he wanted this, and another chunk of wasted time while he worked through actually dealing with how much he loves getting it but, goddamn, is it worth it. It’s so worth it to get pressed up against the tile and have Daniel pound into him and just ride the fucking into bliss without having to do jackshit except take it. It’s a relief, like so many things with Daniel are. Only this one comes with the bonus of an orgasm so blinding that he’d fall the fuck down if Daniel weren’t holding him up.

Daniel sounds like a cave man when he comes and it’s hot as hell but having a guy shoot inside him is still a weird thing. Johnny’s not a big fan. For years they didn’t go bare it at all because Johnny was loyal but he wouldn’t promise he wouldn’t fuck a chick, if it came up, even though he never did, and people were fucking dying out there, as Lucille felt like she needed to remind them every goddamn time they came over for dinner. So condoms. Every time. Even after they’d moved in together. Until the day Johnny said fuck it, too lazy to get one and too tired of lying about this not being forever to bother anymore.

He doesn’t let Daniel fuck him raw outside of the shower. It’s just gross and clean up’s a bitch and after he’s come, he’s done. In here it’s easy.

Plus, Daniel’s a goddamn sap who likes to do squishy shit like wash Johnny’s hair when they’re done. He runs his fingers through it and massages his scalp and it feels fucking amazing. Honestly between the instant clean up and the LaRusso Salon Treatment shower sex is his favorite.

He’s basically a bowl of spaghetti when they stumble out and Daniel dumps him on the couch in a towel like bolognese in front of muted Pop-Up Videos. Daniel joins him in pajama bottoms and a Valley R&C shirt ten minutes later and sprawls out, feet on the arm, head in Johnny’s lap, like a cat they’re not allowed to have here. Johnny pets his hair and takes a moment to appreciate about how good he looks in his t-shirt.

“Where’d you go?”

“I ordered Chinese.”

“You get the noodles?”

“Yeah I got lo-mein.” He scratches the patch of hair under Johnny’s navel. “You gotta start learning the names for this stuff, Johnny. There’s other cultures, you know that.”

“What do I gotta learn that crap for when I got you to remember it for me?”

“I dunno. ‘Cause I’m not a PDA you can carry around? So you don’t embarrass me?”

Johnny stiffens up. He can’t help it, hearing an echo of Sid’s words in Daniel’s mouth like that even though he knows Daniel’s only joking. Johnny used to embarrass him, when he his reflex was to be a dick to the Old Man and said stupid shit to Lucille because he didn’t stop and think. But he doesn’t do that anymore, so everything else rolls off Daniel. One of the things Johnny admires most about Daniel is he’s got the legit Bruce Lee shit going for him, he can be like water where Johnny’s just a rock stuck at the bottom of a river.

“Johnny?”

“Huh?”

“What’s up, babe?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Hey, come on.” Daniel sits up and Johnny sighs. Damn it. He didn’t want that. He just wanted to have a normal night on the couch with his boyfriend.

Now Daniel’s going to want to talk about it. Which, okay, Johnny was going to anyway but not yet. Not before the Chinese noodles even get here.

“What’s going on?”

“After we eat?”

“Johnny.”

“When we eat.”

Daniel gives him that look that goes all the way through Johnny, into his soul and out the other side. “Okay. As soon as the food gets here.”

“Nerd.”

“Guilty,” Daniel concedes. “Now turn the sound on. I wanna know they did the puppets on this video.”

“They made them and then someone moved them around. That’s how puppets work.”

“Well yeah but how’d they come up with it? Why puppets for a song about nuclear war? This is a land of confusion,’” he sings off-key and out of time with the music video makes Johnny laugh. “Where do they come up with this stuff? I just think it’s neat.”

“The biggest nerd in the Valley, jesus.”

“Yeah,” Daniel agrees, grinning at him before flopping back down, into his lap, where he belongs. “Your nerd.”

“My nerd.”

“Yeah, now shut up. This is the good part.” Meaning halfway through the most depressing Genesis song in a long line of whiny and depressing Genesis songs. Got it.

They get through an episode and a half before the Chinese arrives. Daniel gets the door and Johnny gets them sodas and a fork for himself because Daniel always uses the chopsticks they send. He should probably put on some shorts or something before dinner but fuck it. His towel is knotted good and tight and Daniel likes looking at him like this, says he looks like a cover for one those magazines from the bookshops with the windows blacked out.

He knows looking hot distract Daniel from what they agreed, especially not after screwing in the shower. And Johnny doesn’t want to be alone in his head with Sid’s insanity anyway. Not really. He just hates how it feels to actually talk so he could stop being only person to carry his shit.

Fuck it though. He’s got Chinese noodles and he’s got Daniel’s knee pressed against his and it’s already over. No big deal.

He says, “Sid dragged me to lunch today,” blandly. Because it’s no big deal. He’s already over it.

Daniel freezes with the chopsticks between his teeth. “Are you serious?” he asks, slurring around a piece of broccolis. He swallows and coughs. “The same Sid who told us to lose his number? That Sid?”

Johnny nods, looking down into his noodles like the explanations for this bullshit will be at the bottom of the carton.

“What did he want?”

Johnny looks up at that and finds Daniel looking suspicious and already a little angry. Fuck, he loves him.

It makes this so much easier. Daniel gets it. He’s been there right next Johnny when Sid asked for shit like Johnny to come to visit them in a cab so his mom wouldn’t see his junker car or forbid Daniel from coming to his house or to only talk about work and not about his whole life when visiting her in the hospital because every other piece of his world includes Daniel.

Yeah. Telling Daniel will make this whole thing better. He scoops out some noodles shoves them into his mouth to give himself a minute to figure out how to put this.Two chews and he’s got it. Just the facts ma’am. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“So get this, the psycho shows up at the site, drags me off and orders me to give Mom kids. Like a lunatic.”

Daniel drops his chopsticks. “What?”

“Yeah. I know. It was crazy. He sat there barking orders at me about how I had to go to this creepy baby doctor he’d hooked up with and pump out some grandkids.”

“Jesus.”

“Right. And I told him you can’t just buy kids. I mean, who’s gonna want that anyway? It’s fucking insane.”

“Hang on. He said he’d pay for- what? I’m confused.”

“He said he’d pay for a kid. And, I don’t know,” He shrugs, “Other stuff? It was more vague Sid buy-off bullshit.”

“How the fuck’s he gonna do that?” Daniel demands, looking appropriately horrified. “This doctor traffic in blackmarket Russian orphans or something?” Johnny laughs but Daniel isn’t smiling. “I’m serious. I feel like we should call the cops or the FBI or something. That shit’s a crime, Johnny.”

Johnny just can’t stop laughing. Of course, the guy who got dragged across the world to fight like a gladiator would jump to stolen babies. And yeah, that’s totally something Sid would do. It’s too good.

“It’s not funny.”

“I know,” Johnny chokes out. “But not everyone’s life’s like movie.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that just because you’ve had crazy, life-or-death shit happen to you but doesn’t mean everything’s gotta be the most impossible option. Shit.” He pokes Daniel’s leg with his toe. “You’re such a drama queen.”

“I am not.”

“You are. 'Sokay.” He taps Daniel’s leg again. “It’s funny.”

Daniel bends over and grabs his dropped chopsticks, and pokes Johnny’s knee with the narrow end. “It’s not. Come on, be serious.”

“Hard to be serious when you’re talking about stealing babies.”

“That shit is serious!”

Johnny swats the chopsticks away. “But I didn’t say any of that that.”

“Then what the hell are you talking about, Johnny? Jesus.”

“I don’t know exactly. He just told me to go to this doctor place. It was nuts. Here.” He leans over and sorts through the detritus of the day and finds the crumpled pamphlet for Premier Pacific Fertility Clinic underneath his keys serving as a coaster for his Diet Coke. He drags it out and shoves it at Daniel. “He gave me this and ordered me to be there, like a drill sergeant.”

Daniel grabs the leaflet with his chopsticks and holds up for a closer like. “This looks fancy.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s probably not stolen babies at least.”

“You didn’t look at it?” Daniel asks, all big eyes.

“Pfft. No. Why would I?”

Daniel grabs it with his actual hand now and turns it over, then back. He opens it and the damn thing unfolds over about two feet. “Wow.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Wow. Johnny, this is amazing.”

“There’s nothing amazing about this. It’s just fucking Sid playing head games.”

Daniel shakes his head, eyes glued to the paper. “I don’t think so. This place has a surrogacy placement, like, built in. I didn’t even know that was a thing doctors offices did.”

“A what?”

“A surrogate? Ya know, like a stand-in. It’s someone who-” he he waves a hand.

“That clears it up.”

Daniel sighs. “It’s a woman who carries a baby for someone and doesn’t keep it.”

Johnny can feel his face wrinkling up. “That’s a thing?”

Daniel rolls eyes eyes but doesn’t look up. “Of course it is.”

“There’s no of course. That’s insane.”

“No it’s not. Lots of people can’t have kids on their own. It’s just a work around.”

“So Sid wants me to work around?”

“I don’t know. But maybe?”

“Crazy. Fucking crazy. Gimme that.” He tries to snatch it away but Daniel jerks it back, leaning out of reach. Johnny frowns. “Hey.”

“Hang on a second, Johnny.”

Johnny sets his food aside and moves, crawling across the couch and over into Daniel’s space. It’s one of his better moves. “What am I hanging on for?”

Daniel’s cheeks go pink and his eyes go bright but he’s still holding the damn pamphlet behind him, out of reach. “For us to talk about this.”

“This what?”

“This whole kid thing.”

“There is no kid thing. There’s just Sid being a headcase and me,” he moves forward, into Daniel’s lap, “Getting on top of you.”

“Okay.” Daniel concedes, the hand still holding the chopsticks getting with the program and wrapping around his waist. Good.

“Okay.”

“But there could be.”

“There could be what?”

“Kids.”

Right. Johnny pushes off and scoots back to his spot, glaring at Daniel. “What the fuck, man? That’s no fun.”

Daniel splutters at him. “What?”

“Bringing up kids when I’m on top of you.”

“We’ve been talking about kids for the last ten minutes,” Daniel protests.

“No. We’ve been talking about my stepdad and his psychotic demands. Then you go and bring up kids like that’s a thing that could happen.”

“And you think it can’t?” And does he sound hurt? Why the hell does he sound hurt?

“We’re two dudes, Daniel.” Johnny says even though that much should be obvious. “Of course, it can’t.” He really doesn’t understand why Daniel isn’t getting this.

"Why not?" 

Johnny snorts. That has to be the dumbest thing Daniel has ever said in a parade of incredibly dumb things Daniel has said in the years they've been together. "Come on."

"I'm serious." Daniel says because of course he is. He's always serious. Just like he was serious about taking their beef outside at the ten year reunion and he was serious about giving this thing a shot when they went from hitting each other to kissing each other and he was serious when he said they should try living together. Daniel takes the whole goddamn world seriously but nothing more than Johnny. It's exhausting and it's a burden and it's a terrible, terrifying honor to try and live up to. He's become so much better trying to live up to Daniel's seriousness where he's concerned. 

"Daniel."

"Why can't we have kids?"

"Because I'm a guy and you're a guy and I paid attention in sex ed.You need a girl to make a kid."

Daniel pulls the Premier Pacific Fertility Clinic pamphlet back in front of himself and holds it up. It flaps flaccidly at him. "That's what this is."

"No." Johnny says, shaking his head. He can't look at it without seeing the tiny, angry veins in Sid's eyes. "No that's a goddamn trap."

Daniel tilts his head to the side. "Do you not want them?"

"Do you?"

When Daniel finally answers his voice is very quiet. "I don't know. Maybe. Yeah."

"Are you kidding me?" Johnny explodes. "You want kids? You?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"We're fags, and fags don't get to be parents. That's just how it is." Johnny snaps. He doesn't like to break shit but he's good at it. He's always been good at breaking things - boards, cinderblocks, hearts. When he says that, Daniel's heart breaks all over his face, it's awful. He reaches out, trying to fix it but it's already too late, Daniel isn't letting him touch him. "Hey, don't do that."

"Go to hell, Johnny."

"I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry I said that. But it's true."

Daniel's on his feet in an instant. "It's got nothing to do with anything!" He's pacing and that only happens when he's really upset. Last time he started pacing they almost broke up. 

Shit. And yet Johnny still can't drop it. He's just not that guy. 

"Doesn't it?"

Daniel wraps his arms around himself. He's an average sized guy, really, and his regular practice with the Old Man has made him lean and strong but like that, curled up and defensive he looks so small. Johnny hates that he made him look so small even if his eyes are still burning.

"Things are changing. They're getting better every day."

"No they're not."

"They are. You can ignore it but I'm not. I want us to have a life. A family."

Okay fuck this shit. Johnny gets off the couch and grabs Daniel's hand, pulling him in close. He wraps his arms around Daniel's neck. "I like our life."

"But-"

"And you're my family." He presses his lips tight to the side of Daniel's temple. Daniel tastes like clean skin. Johnny's favorite. "You."

"You too."

"That's enough."

Daniel stands still, with his arms around Johnny's waist for a long time, not saying anything. Johnny thinks he's won. He's pretty goddamn sure he's won. 

Except when Daniel pulls back he's fucking crying. His big brown eyes are wet and Johnny feels like the biggest schmuck on earth and he hates himself. He's also panicking a little. 

"Shit. Baby-"

"I didn't know how bad I wanted this until I realized we actually could have it," Daniel says with a wet laugh. "I was fine. I was happy the way we were and then you show up with this crazy story and I realize, fuck, I really do want to be a dad. Maybe it's because of my dad? I don't know." He drops his forehead to Johnny's shoulder and Johnny buries his fingers in the hair on the back of Daniel's head. "An hour ago I wasn't even thinking about it. Now wanting this feels like it's tearing me up."

"Hey-"

"It's okay. It's fine. I just- I'll be fine." Daniel takes a deen breath pulling hot air against the bare skin of Johnny's chest. "It's just crazy, to realize something about yourself at this point, ya know?" He lifts his head and gives Johnny a smile that is probably supposed to be reassuring. It is not. 

"Kinda?"

That makes Daniel laugh for real which is something. He can give him more than that. He has to. It's Daniel for fuck's sake.

"Look, the appointment's not for like two weeks. We can talk about it?"

"Yeah?" There's hope in his eyes. Fucking hope. The worst possible thing there could be because Johnny's pretty powerless in the face of Daniel's hope. Hope is what got them this far, after all. Goddamn it.

"Yeah. I mean, why not?" He traces the V on the front of his shirt, spread across Daniel's chest. "Sid said you should come." That is not what Sid said, at all, but what Sid said was vile and Johnny isn't going to repeat it. He moves to the A and traces that too. "So we can, uh, go together. See what this is. See if we wanna find something like it for ourselves. Ya know, for when we're ready."

This time Daniel's smile does make him feel better. It takes over his whole face and makes him glow. "Cool. That'd be cool."

No. It's going to be a fucking disaster. It's a goddamn landmine going off under his feet but hey, Daniel's happy. So at least he'll die well laid. 

Goddamn it.


	3. Parents Just Don't Understand

Johnny has never liked the pomp and frilliness of brunch. It's too much sissiness for him. Champagne and decorative napkin folding are just not his thing. That said, at these kinds of places, bacon is always fucking amazing and he can eat his weight in breakfast starches.

More importantly, his mom likes it. Laura gets dressed up for Sunday Brunch at the fanciest places in L.A. and burn Sid's money. The location rotates between The Polo Lounge, Four Seasons, Wolfgang Puck, and The Peninsula to make an appearance and star watch whenever she's well enough to leave the house. Johnny is willing to show up to that for her because it makes her happy.

So. He goes. He watches her shine no matter how much he dislikes having to wear a tie and dress shoes. And if there's some omelets and Belgian waffles the size of frisbees, well that makes the whole thing easier to tolerate.

She’s frail, but she’s always frail, and in the sunlight and pale pastels of the restaurant, she is beautiful. It always makes Johnny happy to see her, kissing her soft tissue-paper cheeks before sliding into the seat beside her.

“I got you orange juice.”

“Thanks Mom.”

“But I didn’t order for you. I didn’t know what you wanted.” She hands him a heavy leather menu. “I don’t like to assume.”

That’s not entirely true. She’s assumed he had girlfriends, assumed he was going to college, assumed he’s done fighting. She assumes lots of things. But she tries. He gets that from her, knowing the value of effort. So he never calls her on it. He just smiles as best he can and squeezes her hand.

“Thanks, Mom.” He gets a variation on the usual, eggs and French toast instead of bacon because he doesn’t know how grease will stay down with what will inevitably come up in conversation. The waitress gives him a lipstick smile and she’s got legs for days.

“She’s pretty,” his mother observes.

“She’s alright.”

“But you’re still with Daniel.”

“Mhm. Anniversary’s coming up in a couple months, actually.”

That gets her attention the way few things could. “Is it?”

“Yeah. Five years.” He counts from ’94. That was when they first kissed, first fucked, first crossed all the lines that mattered but Daniel counts from when they stopped being idiots and got their shit together around and that was in the spring of 1995. So. Five years in May.

“Oh. That’s nice. That’s wood you know. Or, it would be if…” She trails off. Yeah. If they were married. He knows.

Her face falls and she takes a sip of her drink, a mimosa that looks delicate in her white-tipped fingers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-“

“It’s fine.”

"I know but I'm old fashioned. I think making things legal is important." She says with a self-deprecating sigh. "So I did a bit of research on the computer. Sid got us the internet on the office computer. Did I tell you?"

"Yeah you told me."

"And I did some research and found out that boys like you can have domestic partnerships out here now. I think that's nice, don't you?" She gives him a smile that is soft and hopeful.

Johnny has no idea what she's talking about. "Domestic what?"

"Domestic partnerships. It's not the same, of course, but, well, I won't be here forever and if you like that boy, he should be able to take care of you. And it would be nice to throw a party." 

"Mom." There's a buzzing noise going off in his ears that sounds like bees. There are bees in his brain in The Peninsula, what the fuck?

"And you know, when the baby comes it would be good for his or her parents to be married. Some traditional values are important no matter what, I think."

The bees have turned into a chainsaw buzz, plowing directly through his ears. Of course Sid's already talked to her about it. Why wouldn't he? Why wouldn't he fucking tell her about his fucking terrible idea as if it's already happening? Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch bastard. 

"Mom." He has to swallow around the shards of broken glass in his throat. It's a wonder he doesn't taste blood. "Mom, there's no baby."

She pats his hand with hers, thin and papery and so soft. She is so thin. Oh god, she's so delicate and she never used to be. But she's smiling and she seems so much better than she did last week. "Well of course there's not yet, Johnny. These things take time, especially in your circumstance. But when there is. I'm just so excited for you." She gives his hand a gentle squeeze. "You're going to be a wonderful father."

He considers arguing with her. He considers telling her that he's had nothing but shit father figures from his sperm donor to Sid to Kreese but that would be cruel because so much of that was because of her and her choices and he cannot do that to her. Not when she's so fucking happy. Instead he turns his hand on the table and laces his fingers with hers and squeezes back. "I don't know anything about kids."

"Who does?" She leans in, conspiratorial and young like she hasn't been in- God, since before Sid. "Everyone's making this up as we go along, sweetheart. Don't you know that?"

"No."

"Oh. Well. We are. No one knows much of anything until after we've done it."

Johnny laughs and feels like crying. "That doesn't make me feel better."

"Don't worry too much. That's what us old folks are for. We can tell you what we've already messed up on so you don't have to."

"Mom, you're not old."

"I am, but thank you."

She's not. She's not nearly as old as she should be. She deserves to get decrepit but she never will and it is heinously unfair. 

"I don't know if it's going to happen."

"There's a lot to figure out," she agrees. He sighs because she isn't getting it and he's too big a coward to just flat out tell her that this is another of Sid's manipulations. She's just too excited. 

"Yes, like, do you plan on looking for a bigger apartment or are you boys going to start looking for a house?"

What the fuck? "A house?"

The waitress arrives with their orders and doesn't do more than smile at them before setting their meals down in front of them. They look amazing and Laura dives in with an appetite like Johnny hasn't seen in years. For his part, he's not hungry.

She digs into her omelette in a very unladylike way as she speaks, and Johnny can't take his eyes off her. "You have to take a lot into consideration. A one bedroom is too small for a growing family. Don't you remember how cramped we were when we lived in the apartment?"

Johnny remembers being happy when it was just the two of them. He slept on the sofa because he was small enough and she took the bed. He'd made mac and cheese on the stove when she worked late standing on a chair and she'd always been so thrilled to come home to it. They'd watched M*A*S*H together even though he was way too young and didn't understand everything. It was the best his life ever was, before Daniel. 

"That's not something we've talked about."

"You should." She frowns. "We should all talk more."

"You want to talk to Daniel?"

"I think that would be good. I've been wrong not to. I- It's been hard Johnny."

Yeah? No shit? Like it's been easy for him, figuring out this shit on his own, with her pushing him away and pulling back, confusion and repulsion in her eyes at the sight of him finally finding someone who made him feel happy and loved?

"You have to understand," she begins and oh, wow, does he not want to hear a speech about how times are changing from another person. He's heard. People were hateful cunts and now they're less hateful and so is she. He tunes out her out because he doesn't think he can take hearing about she's a new woman for this new millennium and blah blah blah. It's just bullshit excuses. None of it matters. 

It's not her telling him she's sorry for letting Sid ban Daniel from Sunday dinners and it's not her apologizing for refusing to meet Lucille and it's not her telling him she was glad he was happy and it's not her telling him that she was wrong for wishing he would try and find a nice girl. It's none of those things and he just shovels French toast in his mouth until she says something worth listening to. 

"So, I'll try, sweetheart. For you and for this family, I'll try. And I know he's a good boy. I do. This is my problem and I'm going to work on it because I do want to know him. I promise."

Oh. 

Johnny coughs because he's inhaled his bite of food he's so shocked. "You do?"

"He's going to be the other father of my grandchild, Johnny, of course I do."

Oh shit.

"I'll let him know."

"That sounds good. Can I have a bite of your French toast?"

"Yeah. Sure." He says, putting a piece on her plate because that, at least, is an easy answer. Nothing else is.


	4. There Is No Spoon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> huge thanks to nev_longbottom for giving me this fight sequence - my warrior queen I couldn't have done this without you

Every week, Daniel spends the better part of his Sunday afternoons with the Old Man, helping him keep up the place. That means that after brunch, Johnny goes straight to the Old Man's place. Do not pass go; do not collect two hundred dollars. 

Only Daniel's car is there, which is good. The Old Man's good people but isn't in the mood for any of his riddles right now. 

Daniel's in the backyard and Johnny doesn't even say anything. He makes a beeline for the dojo. He's happy to be alone with the stillness he gets when he's working out, warming up with push ups and katas and memorized routines until he's breathing heavy. 

Miyagi's small studio is nothing like Cobra Kai, no mirrors, no wide open space, but it's enough for him to to loosen up and start feeling like himself, his real self, again before Daniel walks in, dirt on his hands, the sun warm on his skin and a smile on his face.

"Well," Daniel drawls, "look at you."

"Look at you. Take your shoes off. Show some respect."

"You're always rushing me, Johnny. You gotta slow down."

Johnny bounces from foot to foot, the soles of his feet on the mat are hyper aware of the feel of the rough material against his bare skin. "You're too slow. Catch up, LaRusso." He holds out a hand and the 'bring it on' hand gesture like Morpheus in the Matrix. They'd seen that movie a dozen times before it left theaters. It's the best damn fight movie to come out since Bruce Lee died. Johnny bought it the minute it came out on tape and it gives him a thrill when Daniel answers, kicking off his shoes and stepping up to him and into a fighting stance, fists up. 

"I know kung fu."

"You do not, nerd."

"No, but I'm gonna kick your ass anyway."

"Yeah?" He jerks his chin in invitation. "Let's go then."

"Ah, Johnny." His smile is so big, it cracks his face in two and makes his eyes shine. "You know that's not how this is gonna go."

He's right. Daniel takes the rule of Self-Defense Only dead serious when it comes to his karate, even if he doesn't hesitate to say stupid shit instantly, immediately and, Johnny would argue, consistently. No matter how much Johnny wants him to, needs him to, provokes him to? Daniel never, ever throws the first punch. 

In a fight, Daniel always waits. In a fight, Daniel always makes him move first. There's an excitement in the challenge of it, trying to see if this time, Johnny can make Daniel snap. There's a comfort in the certainty of it, knowing that Johnny can do anything and Daniel never will.

Circling Daniel, assessing the way he shifts his weight trying to gauge for an opening, a weakness, takes him back to when they were kids and stupid and hurting each other and it takes him back to the reunion and when they were adults and hurting each other. It takes him back without having to live there, lets him rewrite those fights better, brighter, with a happier ending. The fights when he was with Cobra Kai were a misery that he lost even when he won. The reunion fight was so full of old pain and new need that it had overwhelmed everything else, driving Johnny to action before thought. This is different, he can last for ages now, knows that Daniel's knee is bothering him today from all the work he's doing for the Old Man from the way he's been favoring his side, knows that he's ready to block high because he thinks Johnny's going to punch, knows that he's distracted because he keeps watching looking at Johnny's mouth. 

The moment before first strike goes on and on for agonizingly long minutes that drag out forever with a patience that Johnny never had before Daniel became his partner. And Johnny won't ever admit it, but resisting the urge to take that first move is half the fun. And, God, fighting Daniel is fun. 

This time, Johnny waits until Daniel looks down at his junk and licks his lips, distracted, and lashes out with a punch because it's familiar, is an easy block and that makes him feel comfortable. It distracts him from the real attack, a snap kick with his back leg extending into a side kick. People always watch hands when they see the distancing and weight shift. They aren't expecting a snap kick to twist into a side kick. It's not clean karate but it's Johnny's style. 

Daniel barely manages to protect his flank in time, cursing and laughing. He shifts back to use a side block on the inside of Johnny's leg. He's in the right position to respond with a beauty of a hook kick. 

Johnny's foot is still in mid-air when Daniel's counter strike lands which means the weight imbalance coupled with the impact from the hook kick makes him fall back. Johnny turns the fall into a back roll that lets him come right back up to his feet with a rapid fire series of punches that Daniel has to side step to evade. 

It's a smart move. You can't punch what's not there and the side step positions Daniel perfectly for a throat punch. Someone else would block that but Johnny knows Daniel better than he knows anyone and he knows it's coming. He lets it land, making sure to pull back so he doesn't actually get choked but by allowing that sacrifice, Johnny can grab his arm and slide underneath using the momentum of the attack against him to throw Daniel over his shoulder and onto his back, pinning his arm and straddling him.

"You son of a bitch."

"Don't talk about my mother that way," Johnny declares. "And she's not here. I am."

"Yeah, you are." Daniel says smiling up at him from the ground, breathless and thrilled to be put down. "C'mere." 

He leans up and Johnny leans down and then Daniel's kissing him. Johnny's kissing him back and it's so much like that first time, in the sand behind the hotel where their ten year reunion had been held after a flurry of furious blows. Only now, there's no anger or frustration or years of hurt left unresolved. There's just affection and joy at the familiarity of knowing someone that you can predict all their moves and they can yours. It's why Johnny isn't surprised when Daniel's legs wrap around his and his hips twist and their positions flip. 

He could get Daniel back on his back but he'd have to give up his hold on his arms or stop kissing him. It's a stalemate. Perfect. 

"You wanna call it?" Johnny asks against Daniel's mouth.

"Draw?"

"Draw."

When Daniel smiles this time Johnny can feel it. "You can let go of me now." His tongue touches Johnny's lips every few syllables and it feels like a different kind of fight.

"Don't think I'm gonna do that, LaRusso." Because if they're going to go back to old standbys, might as well go all in.

He tightens his fits around Daniel's wrists and grins like a lunatic. He likes feeling Daniel pull against his grip, checking his conviction, checking his hold and finding it unbreakable. He doesn't go limp but he doesn't try to break it even though Johnny knows that if he really wanted to, he could, just like Daniel knows that Johnny could get out from underneath him but won't. It's the best kind of stalemate. 

"So ya got me."

"I got you," Johnny agrees. "And you've got me."

"I do."

"Fuck." Johnny is so stupid for this guy he has to kiss him again. He can't help himself. He's got those soft lips and those big eyes and he's just everything Johnny wants and sometimes he can't believe he gets to have him. Like, he feels like after everything he should be living a different, worse life but he gets to do this instead, live in the clean sunshine, with Daniel.

But this place isn't theirs and the Old Man's voice splashes over them like ice water. "You both busy?" he asks, amusement making his accent sound even thicker.

Daniel practically flies off of him like the Old Man’s words are an electric shock. It’d be funny if it weren’t such a fucking boner killer. Johnny frowns at the sight of Daniel halfway across the dojo, blushing and embarrassed. 

“Mr. Miyagi. Hey. I, uh, we were just- uh- sparring.”

“I spar too. Spar all the time.” The Old Man muses. “Never spar like that.” He quirks an eyebrow at them and looks smug as shit. It’s the kind of expression that won Johnny over years ago. 

“Then it sounds like you’ve been doing it wrong, Old Man.”

“Then you spar wrong here, Johnny-san. Can spar right at home.”

“Oh my god.” Daniel moans directly into his hands. “Just kill me.”

“Karate for self-defense only,” the Old Man says firmly. 

Johnny snorts then chokes then bursts into strangled laughter. Daniel groans again which just makes Johnny laugh harder. The Old Man doesn’t laugh but he’s smirking at them because that’s just the kind of dick he is. 

He claps his hands, and waves at the door. “Now. You get dirt on my floor. Out.” 

Daniel blanches. “But-“ The Old Man looks at him, just looks, nothing more and Johnny watches Daniel fold like a deck chair. It’s amazing. “Yes, Mr. Miyagi.”

“Thank you, Daniel-san,” he calls to Daniel’s retreating back.

“Yeah yeah.” Daniel calls, waving his hand back at them. “Hope you don’t need a shower any time soon ‘cause I’m using all your hot water.” Johnny knows he’s got a weeks worth of clothes stored in the Old Man’s spare room, has to with the amount of yard work and maintenance he does here. He mourns the fact that he’s not going to be sharing that shower with Daniel but some things aren’t done. Not with the Old Man actual on the property anyway. 

Johnny figures he might as well take the opportunity to cool down and sits up and into a stretch. The Old Man hasn’t moved, just stands there, looming over him, watching. 

Well. That’s not fair. He’s a small guy so he doesn’t loom. He just sort of, waits. He waits and observes and makes his presence known by the way he takes up space quietly and intently until Johnny has gone through a few stretches and is about ready to scream at the inexorable stare burning a hole through his forehead.

“Oh my god, what?”

“Nothing.”

That is such bullshit. It’s something. There’s always something. If there weren’t something, he’d have waited for Johnny to come to him because the Old Man is the least confrontational human being Johnny has ever met in his life. Johnny honestly doesn’t know how he’s gotten this far, not starting shit. It’s amazing. It’s infuriating. It makes Johnny want to throw shit at him just to see if he’ll snap. 

“No what?”Johnny presses as he gets to his feet. “You want something.”

“Only want to see how you are doing. Daniel-san say family difficult for you now.”

“He did, huh? That all he said?” The Old Man gives Johnny another look, and yeah, that’s what Johnny thought. “Just say it.”

“Daniel-san say you face difficult choice.”

“There’s no choice. There’s nothing to choose. Listen, Miyagi, you’re a good dude, okay? And I respect you. But all your ancient wisdom can’t touch this situation because you don’t know anything about it.” Did they even have homos in Japan? Johnny didn’t think they did, and if they did, they’d probably only invented them after the Old Man left. 

“Family expectation,” he says and shakes his head.  
“Can be heavy weight to carry, Johnny-san. Should not carry the weight alone.”

“Well it’s my family and my weight and I don’t have to share so, mind your own business.”

“Daniel-san is my family. You are Daniel-san family. So, you? My family too.”

Johnny never knows what to do with that sort of sentiment from the Old Man. It’s too raw, too soft, too _honest_. That kind of sincerity is dangerous and coming from Daniel, it’s one thing. Johnny’s gotten used to it but he’s not acclimated to from anyone else. Emotion hit him like a wave at the beach, rocking him back on his proverbial heels and making him feel small and scared and when he’s scared, he turns into a kid again. And when he was a kid, he was trained to do three things: strike first, strike hard, show no mercy. So he does.

“Please. You want to make a family, buy dog. Or a wife. That’s what men your age do right?” He rolls his eyes. “Or if that’s too much just ask Daniel to do some more chores. He always jumps when you say how high.”

The Old Man sighs and shakes his head and just looks fucking… sad. It makes Johnny’s skin itch. He crosses to him and Johnny can feel himself slide into a defensive stance involuntarily because he knows what this man can do, can’t ever forget how he brought Kreese down with a few moves, still bests Daniel whenever the two of them train together, is a better fighter than either of them will probably ever be if. But the son of a bitch just pats Johnny on the shoulder. “Johnny-san, we talk more another time. Okay?”

That deflates him like he’s a balloon held closed with pinched fingers and Miyagi just loosened the grip. He leans forward into his touch for moment before jerking away.

“Yeah. Whatever.”

He doesn’t wait to hear what the Old Man might have to say to that. He grabs his shoes and goes outside. There’s always bullshit chores to do here. It’s not as good a distraction as fighting or fucking but hey, it’ll do.


	5. Personal Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See how fast this got updated? You can thank the people leaving those delicious long comments. Every one one of those is like writer rocket fuel. And the short ones are the engines that help me steer. Just, I cannot express how much easier it is to write knowing that this amazing audience is reading. Your feedback feeds me in ways I cannot express and is the reason this story is coming along like it is. Thank you so much.

Johnny doesn’t know what happens to the two weeks. One minute, it’s Sunday night and he’s fucking the promise they’d made during that fight out of Daniel in their bed, holding his hands pinned over his head with his long legs wrapped around his waist, and they’re locked together in pleasure that seems to go on forever. Then he’d blinked, and suddenly they’ve burned through a whole week and another weekend and it’s almost Friday _again_. Already. What the hell? 

He comes in from work Thursday and knows that things are just, wrong, because Daniel’s sitting on the couch, dress shirt unbuttoned and tie hanging around his neck like the world’s saddest wreath. He’s got a beer in his hand and he’s staring at the coffee table like it holds the secrets of the universe.

Johnny steps out of his shoes because Daniel likes that tradition and he doesn’t want to set him off by forgetting something that small. Not when he looks like that and is drinking while it’s still light out like he’s Johnny or something.

He waits until he’s almost standing directly in front of Daniel to speak and he’s more gentle than he usually is with anything in his life. “Hey.” He takes a step forward so his shin taps Daniel’s knee. “You’re home early.”

“Yeah.” Daniel raises the beer up and toasts him. His fractured smile that would look more familiar to what Johnny sees in the mirror than on Daniel’s cheerful face. “I uh,” he laughs. “I took a personal day.”

“Have you been home all day?” Johnny asks, heat flooding his body and his chest constricting. But he does not panic. He doesn’t. He’s in a state of fucking concern. That’s what this is.

Daniel glares up at him from his slump into the worn, brown leather couch cushions. 

He taps Daniel’s knee again.“Daniel, if you took a personal day and-“

“Holy shit, you’re just like my damn boss, nickel and fucking diming me about every second. An hour okay? I took a personal hour from work, okay? I took a personal hour and I got home early and now I’m here and you know what Johnny? So are you. Finally.”

Johnny takes a step back, right into the coffee table. He doesn’t know what’s happening but he knows he needs to shore up his defenses and get ready because Daniel’s on the offensive and things are going to get real bloody, real fast because that’s just how shit works. That’s how it’s worked since the day they met back in high school. Daniel gets mad at him for something he has no goddamn idea he’s done wrong and Johnny just has to figure out how to handle the situation without his entire life burning down around him. Thank Christ he’s better at that now that he knows the rules of the fucking bouts he’s fighting but it never gets easier, walking into these ambushes, never gets any more fair.

“I was at work. All day. And then I came here. I don’t know what’s going on, babe.” That’s important. The Old Man taught him that. Find out what tactics work and use them but don’t move too fast and don’t go too hard because if you break yourself, you can’t defend yourself. With Daniel, identifying and explaining work best. Won’t stop him but it’ll slow him the fuck down. “You’ve lost me.”

Daniel drags a hand through his hair and pulls. “Yeah? You’re lost? Ya know what? Me too.” Johnny shakes his head and Daniel sighs and starts again. “Okay. Look, I have customers, all day, and they come in, and I sell them cars. ‘What can I do for ya? What do ya need it for? And then they tell me about their lives. And I tell them about my life back, because honesty works, genuineness works, concern, it fucking works. And they’ve got to get their kids to school and ballet and soccer and chess and the doctor and I just nod. I nod and say this car’ll be probably be great for taking your kids to the beach and that one’s got stain-proteted seats that'll probably a cinch to clean up spills your teenage driver leaves behind and they all probably would be Johnny, but I don’t know. Thirty-two years old and I’ve got no idea. I’m just guessing.”

“Because you’re good at your job.”

“I am.” He stands up and Johnny tries to back up but he can’t. The coffee table is there so he moves to the side and out, into the open space of the living room in front of the TV. Daniel abandons his beer and follows him. “I’m fucking great at my job. You know who else’s great at their job?”

Johnny shakes his head.

“Mike in Finance. He’s got pictures of his desk. His wife. She’s not particularly good looking. Big nose.” He makes a gesture out about three inches from his face, like he can talk, with his ears but Johnny keeps quiet. “And his two kids and their cats. They’ve got five cats.” He laughs and it is a sad horrible sound. “The cats outnumber the people Johnny. But they’re all there. On his desk. Where anyone could see ‘em.”

“You’re allergic to cats,” he says, because he is, above all things, a goddamn idiot. 

Daniel grabs him by the shirt and yanks him in. The fabric tears at the collar with a grim rip as Daniel shakes him. “It’s not. About. The cats! Johnny!”

Oh. Oh, of course it’s not. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Daniel says on a bitter, broken chuckle. “Yeah oh. I’ve been trying, Johnny." He drags his hands up Johnny's chest, hooks his index finger into the new hole in the space between the soft jersey and knit collar of his blue Valley R&C t-shirt. "I’ve been trying to give you time to work your issues with Sid out on your own. Then today Grace came to visit the office from maternity leave with pictures of her baby and I just… I couldn’t do it.” 

He goes from shaking to clutching, the collar separating even more as it tears under Daniel's desperate grip but Johnny is better at this. He can hold Daniel just fine. It’s easier than trying to figure out what to say.

“I couldn’t fucking look at the pictures of her and her husband and their gorgeous kid and not-" Daniel's voice breaks wetly on that word and Johnny holds on tighter. "Not say anything anymore when I don’t know if that offer’s gonna last or not and this could be it.” 

“Daniel.”

“This could be our only chance to have a kid of our own and we can’t just let it go, Johnny. We can’t. There may never be another chance. Not for us. I can’t even have a picture of you on my desk.” Daniel’s voice is frantic and if Johnny wasn’t panicking before? Well, that’s okay, because he’s panicking now.

“Daniel, babe,” Johnny breathes, pressing his lips into Daniel’s hair. “We can’t.” He knows that when he said it, it was a denial to Daniel’s plea but this is Sid. Every gift is a razor blade in a candy bar. “He’s fucking poison.”

“I don’t care!” Daniel shouts yanking away from him in a move that is definitely not Miyagi-approved but is absolutely effective. “I don’t fucking care. I don’t give a shit how we have kids, Johnny. I just care that we have them.” He waves a hand through the air between the two of them. “You and me. Together.”

Cold terror climbs up Johnny’s spine at the very thought of a tiny life reliant on him. He needs this to end, he needs to escape, he needs this to get out. The fastest way out is to use blunt force and fight mode drives him back to the beginning: strike first, strike hard, no mercy. But the only way out is through Daniel. 

So. He goes through Daniel. 

“You really think that’s such a good idea? You and me? Please. What the fuck do we know about being fathers anyway? Not like either of us had them.”

Daniel flinches and shit, Johnny really should have just hit him. That’d’ve been better, kinder. 

“Plenty.” 

“Daniel-“

“I know plenty. And you know enough to know what not to do. C’mon Johnny.” The appeal begs for a response and sets a challenge that entices Johnny to answer by actually meeting any expectation Daniel sets. Every time Daniel calls to him in that tone, it’s always something unreasonably good. Rise to the occasion. Be smart. Be kind. Be better. Be more. Be good enough. Be mine. Since they stopped talking at cross purposes, Johnny’s never felt like he’s failed that call yet.

God, Daniel really is going to be such an amazing father. He shouldn’t have to parent Johnny at the same time.

His shoulders sag and he drops his head. “I’m sorry. I- Yeah.”

“It’s okay. It’s a lot. ’S why I took the personal hour.”

“Personal day.”

“Nickel and goddamn diming me all the time.” Daniel protests. He turns and picks his beer back up off the coffee table and with it, the pamphlet from the clinic that started all this. He holds it out between them. “But I wanna talk about this. You saying sorry doesn’t make that go away.”

“You sure?”

Daniel snorts but shakes his head. “I’m dead sure. Johnny,” Daniel looks at him and Johnny can see a whole fucking world in his eyes. They’re overwhelming and he wraps his arms around himself at sight of them. “Do you want to have a family with me?”

“We are a family.” It’s the same answer he gave the first time this came up and it hasn’t changed. It’s never going to change. 

It’s Daniel’s turn to come to him. He puts his hands on his neck and Johnny doesn’t move an inch when if it were anyone else, anyone on earth, even his mom, he’d move away, at least a little. Daniel he lets hold his life in his wide hands and trusts him as they stroke upwards towards his chin until they cup his jaw, his thumbs coming to rest over his cheekbones. “I know we are. Hey, we are. Johnny.” He pauses to tip Johnny’s face just so and Johnny goes, pliant and easy for Daniel’s touch and is rewarded with a single soft kiss. “I’m gonna spend my life with you. That’s not the question. But I’m asking you.” He drops his right thumb to stroke over Johnny’s lower lip. It’s tender and loving and makes Johnny feel like he’s going to cry. It’s absolutely awful. “Do you want to have a family with me?”

Disarmed completely as only Daniel can, the truth falls out of Johnny’s mouth over the warm finger barely barring his path. “I don’t know.”

Daniel nods. “Okay. Then, let’s go tomorrow, to that appointment. We’ll just find out more. We don’t have to decide anything. If it’s not a ‘no’ then, we can’t lose the chance, okay? We can’t. Not till we’re sure.”

He could say no. He could tell Daniel he isn’t going. He could get mad now and bring this back to Sid. But he didn’t say no. And there’s hope in Daniel’s eyes, bright and shining and making him so beautiful it almost aches to look at him. “Okay. Just to see. No commitments.”

“Yeah, baby, just to see.”

Oh shit. Daniel only rolls that out when Johnny’s done something very good. Johnny moves just a little, enough that he can catch Daniel’s thumb between his lips, not enough to bite or tease, just enough to make it known that he’s aware of what he heard, and Daniel sucks in a sharp inhalation and breathes “Johnny baby” before grabbing his hair. 

Yeah. Johnny’s fucked up and fumbled his way here, same as always. Yet despite everything, he’s done good. And hey, tomorrow’s probably going to be goddamn terrible but right now? 

They’re taking a personal night.


	6. I Hate and I Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask.  
> I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.  
> \- [Poem 85, Catullus c. 65 BCE](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0006%3Apoem%3D85)
> 
> See end notes for expanded warning on a couple possible triggers mentioned in new tags. As always, read with your self-care in mind.
> 
> <3

Johnny’s trapped in a really awful version of a Charlie Brown special. Only instead of a classroom he’s in the Premier Pacific Fertility Clinic and instead of desks the place is all earth tones and pictures of pregnant ladies and sickeningly cute babies. The very helpful attendants don’t sound like squawking horns so much as the white noise that comes over the tv when the programming ends and the screen turns into static snow.

He gives his name and they say something. He’s sure it’s words but all he gets is static. They give him things to fill out but he knows there's places to put his information even as looks at it, nothing computes, it's just static. He fills out his information out through the snow and gives it back to them. They tell him where to go and Johnny stares at them because he knows they’re giving him directions but it’s just static. He nods and tries to pretend anything fucking landed but no, just fucking static.

Daniel eventually grabs him by the arm and drags him where he’s supposed to be, thank fuck, but it’s a near thing. Johnny cannot believe he took off work early for _this_.

“-nny. Hey, Johnny!”

Oh shit. That’s at least the third time Daniel’s said his name. He really needs to answer. “Huh?”

“What the hell is the matter with you?”

Johnny adjusts himself in his seat and cracks his thumb knuckle then his index finger. "Nothing. I’m fine. Sorry. ”

“You don’t look fine. You didn’t answer. You haven’t been answering anyone and I know you’re not shy.” Daniel's got a little dip between his eyebrows that isn't normally there the whole time he's looking at Johnny and that can't be a good thing.

“I told you. I’m fine. I just- I think my hearing's off or something.“ He tugs at his earlobe. It doesn't really help. "I don’t know.”

“Great." That little divot gets even deeper. "Wonderful. Just what we need. Another bill.”

“My ears are fine. I just wasn’t listening.”

Daniel swats him on the shoulder. “And that’s better?”

Johnny shrugs. “I dunno? Isn’t it.”

Daniel smacks his shoulder again and groans. “I can’t _believe_ I took off work for this.”

Johnny catches his hand, laces their fingers together and kisses his scarred, knobbly knuckles because that? That right there? Is why he’s doing any of it. Because even if they’re coming from completely opposite directions for totally different reasons, Daniel always finds him exactly where he is.

“Hey!”

Johnny can see the record scratch behind Daniel’s eyes. It’s gratifying and Johnny rubs his chin against the back of his hand just for the hell of it and because it makes Daniel stutter and stall. It’s cute.

“What?”

“Public.” Daniel hisses. He turns a little pink around the edges and that’s nice. It doesn’t fix anything but it’s nice.

“We’re not in public. We’re-“ He waves a free hand.

He’s not exactly sure where they are now. It’s not an exam room and it’s not the waiting room. It’s somewhere else. It’s like a living room, if living rooms came in woodsy NorCal chic eight-by-ten cells that really didn’t do it for Johnny all. The green overstuffed couch with its polished wood armrests that he sat on with Daniel okay enough and the matching armchair and loveseat both look comfortable enough but the little zen sand garden feature on the coffee table was a disaster waiting to happen. Or that had already happened. There’s definitely granules of white in the ultra thick carpet navy carpet. He doesn’t even know he’s fixated on them but now that he’s noticed, he can’t stop staring at them. They’re embedded in the fibers here and there like little flecks salt in an endless sea.

He wonders how many there are, how people could just knock them on the floor and not care. Do they not vacuum in here? Or do they have a shitty vacuum cleaner? They don’t have a great one at the apartment so when they need to do any real cleaning, they always have to borrow the Old Man’s which is stupid because he uses a broom and dustpan for pretty much everything anyway. There’s something to it about hard work and diligence or some other zen thing, which is the point of that dumb sand toy on the table that people are using wrong because there are little grains of white sand in the fibers of the navy carpet.

Daniel jabs him gently in the side with his elbow. He blinks, blinks again and shakes his head in time to hear Daniel saying his name. They’re not holding hands anymore. They’re just sitting on that couch, turned slightly towards each other, and something is different.

“Huh?” He shapes out his hands and rubs his forehead, digging his knuckles into his eyebrow before dropping his hands to his lap. Fuck. This whole thing is giving him a goddamn headache.

“You did it again.”

Daniel’s got something like worry shadowing his pretty eyes. He can’t fucking bear to look at it and drops his gaze. He ends up staring down at his hands, clenching and unclenching. Open and closed. Open and closed. In time with his breathing. Open and closed. He frowns at his hands, confused. “What’d I do?”

“I don’t know. It was weird. You zoned out on me. But I need you to not fucking do that when she gets here.”

He has to force himself to look up from the rhythm they set to answer Daniel. “When who gets here?”

Daniel’s mouth actually drops open for a moment before he answers. “Are you serious right now?”

“Yeah?” Clench and unclench. Open and closed. Open and closed. He stops to pull the fingertips of his right hand back towards his wrist with the palm of his left. It does nothing to relieve his tension.

“The counselor lady. They said she’d be here in a minute.”

He repeats the stretch on the left hand and glances down at his watch. Jesus fuck, is that the time? Really? “Been more than a minute.”

“Yeah. It’s been more like twenty but everything takes forever at a place like this. That’s a rule of the universe.”

“There another cosmic rule that says time moves slower in hell?”

The joke lands like an egg on cement and Daniel reaches out and grabs his right hand, breaking the stretch to tangle their fingers together like they were however long ago. He gives Johnny a long, careful look. Johnny isn’t sure what he finds but it can’t be anything good because he declares, “We can go if you want.”

“What?” Johnny gapes at him but Daniel just nods. “I thought you wanted kids. That's why we’re here.”

“I do want kids. I want kids so bad that I close my eyes and I swear, I think I can see their faces, but not if it’s gonna mess you up like this.” He reaches up and touches his shoulder, his neck, his face. Johnny leans into the touch because honestly, he doesn’t know any other way to respond when Daniel touches him. “I didn’t- Shit. I’m sorry.”

Johnny kisses him just to shut him up, quick and daring but still a little shy because they’re behind a closed door but this is still in public, but he does it. He stops that bullshit because he doesn’t want to hear that from Daniel who didn’t do anything wrong here. Johnny’s the fuck up. He’s always the fuck up. “Don’t, okay? ”

Daniel shakes his head and then smiles. “We’ll figure something else out. Adopt maybe? Or save up and do this on our own. I dunno. But it’ll happen for us when it’s supposed to. We work shit out in our own time, Johnny. That’s who we are.”

So, the thing is that Johnny really hated Daniel for a long time. Ten years, actually. He hated Daniel for fucking up his life and for ruining the best thing he had going for him with Cobra Kai and for publicly humiliating him at All Valley and for getting him nearly murdered and especially for making him have to deal with wanting a dude. He also hated Daniel for just, being a better fucking person than him, like, in general.

But Johnny didn’t really have to deal with any of that for a long because Daniel wasn’t there and Johnny survived by living by an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ philosophy. So long as whatever it was wasn’t in front of him? He didn’t think about it. If he wasn’t staying with Sid and his Mom, there weren’t problems at home. While he was working, there wasn’t any reason to think about the fact that he wasn’t at college. Any time he wasn’t actively trading no-drama kissless fucks at the gym with the guys he worked out with, he had no reason to think about the fact that he liked men. And so long he didn’t see Daniel LaRusso, there was no goddamn reason for Johnny to think about the fact he hated the son of a bitch.

That had worked just fine right up until the girls who had been in student government way back when threw their ten year high school reunion at this gorgeous hotel in fucking Santa Monica because the rich Encino kids wanted show off being rich Encino adults and a few of the Reseda kids had made good and wanted to flaunt their dot com millions and Johnny wasn’t going to turn down an open bar so he’d gone and of course. Of course, Daniel was there and all the things he hadn’t been thinking about had been there, unavoidable and on the surface and after a goddamn decade Johnny’d had no choice but to think about all of it, every thing Daniel meant and everything he’d done and everything that Johnny had done because of and since him and he’d fucking _hated_ him. He’d hated him and thank god, Daniel had hated him right back.

It had been so easy, falling back into mutual loathing. They’d nearly destroyed the reunion, bouncing up against each other chest to chest in an explosion of aggression before going back to their corners only to do it all again like a pair of gorillas in a territory dispute. Only time and what little maturity each of them managed to scrape together kept them from throwing hands right there in the ballroom and it certainly scared off anyone sane from interacting with either of them the whole night until Bobby, forever the best of them, and a few others had shepherded them into the parking lot and let them loose on each other. And then? Then everything was easy. Brutal. Ugly. Pure.

They’d fought each other until the crowd that formed to watch had torn them apart and when that wasn’t enough, they’d tumbled, bruised, bleeding and still steaming, onto the private beach behind the hotel to continue the fight in the dark.

Johnny honestly doesn’t know how long they spent in combat that night. Time got syrupy after a while. He remembers tasting copper and wetness dripping into his eyes and blurring his vision. He remembers the sound of the waves, a soft and steady counterpoint to their labored breathing. He remembers Daniel’s face in the moonlight, his face splotchy with dark bruises and lacerations, blood on his skin and in-between his teeth, and how tired he’d looked. Johnny remembers being tired too.

He knows they spoke to each other, once they start to strike out at each other. They had to but he doesn’t remember what they said. He remembers the actual combat far more vividly, which blows landed, which were blocked, what was smart and what was stupid, which forms were beautiful and which were sloppy. It was the best fight of his life and demanded everything Johnny had. Fighting Daniel - hating him, wanting him, finally facing him the way he had needed to for so long - was the most honest he’d ever been with anyone. So by the time Bobby finally gave up on them, the last spectator to walk away, with a parting “Don’t kill each other,” Johnny had already been left flayed open in a way he never had been before and they weren’t done yet.

He’d just didn’t have any defenses left when Daniel caught him by the back of the neck in a grapple that wasn’t karate, looking back it must have come from jiu jitsu or judo, and demanded, in a voice that was cracked all the through but nothing like broken, “What the fuck do you want from me, Johnny?”

Johnny couldn’t even stay silent because he only had his truth to give by that point. Daniel had earned it so he told the truth and said, “Everything.”

Daniel had squeezed his neck, hard and angry, moving in for a choke hold. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Me either,” Johnny had laughed because yeah, that was about right. And then he swept Daniel’s leg out from underneath him and they both hit the sand.

It’s been more than half a decade but Johnny still has no idea which of them moved first. He just knows that one second he was lying on top of Daniel in the sand trying to figure out if he should press his advantage and pin him or jump up and gain space and the next they were kissing. It tasted like blood and sea salt and alcohol from the hotel bar and pain and anger and hunger and moonlight.

They still tore at each other; they couldn't stop that just because suddenly getting their hands under fabric and onto bare skin was suddenly the most important thing in the world. Johnny remembers staring into Daniel's face, in those few moments he stopped devouring his mouth to catch a gasping breath, and he'd looked like Johnny was hurting him and like he never wanted it to stop. So he didn't because Daniel didn't want him to and he didn't want to and most importantly, neither of them had tapped out yet. The fight hadn't ended once they started kissing, it just shifted into something new, messy for different reasons and catastrophic in a whole new way.

What they did on that beach was different from anything Johnny had ever done and it hollowed Johnny out. What it left behind were things that were raw and tender, soft even. And they didn't discuss it, but being together like that burned Daniel up on the inside too. Johnny just hadn't left afterwards when with everyone else he'd ever fucked, he was looking for a way out a soon as he'd come and Daniel hadn't tried to go anywhere either.

Instead, when the battle inside and out was finally over, Johnny fell asleep to the sound of those waves with his head on Daniel’s shoulder, Daniel’s arm slung around his waist, his hand tucked inside Johnny's unbuttoned dress shirt, palm warm against the skin of Johnny’s stomach. They woke up the same way with the sun rising behind the hotel, give or take a few knees and elbows. Johnny remembers that moment, drifting out of sleep with Daniel warm under and around him and the sense of stillness inside himself that came with it, so clearly. It was the first time he’d ever felt truly safe with another person. Nothing in his life's ever scared him more.

He still doesn’t know how he managed not to fucking ruin it. He came so close, with all the shit he said and all the fucked up things he did. Only how badly he wanted Daniel now that he’d had him kept Johnny from running screaming, he’s pretty sure.

In the beginning, Johnny had needed to be around Daniel, be with him, be kissing him and touching him and holding him and tasting him and fucking him and, god, getting fucked by him, just, all the time it felt like. He couldn’t seem to stay away more than forty-eight hours, even when everything in him ordered him not to be queer, that he couldn’t be a faggot, to get out and go back to being normal. But Daniel was a drug to him back then, and no matter how often he left Daniel's place, sure that this time would be the last time, he always went back. Jesus, he'd felt like he was going crazy but that all consuming hunger had saved him from himself. In the end, the aching in his dick and the desperation crawling in his skin and the ache throbbing in that space in the hollow behind his breastbone needed him to be with Daniel more than those slimy voices in his head needed him to not be a homo.

But shit, was there a lot of shouting in the days that followed their fuck on the beach and there was so much time spent on Johnny distilling the way he actually felt for Daniel, the Daniel he was actually faced with - the one he kept landing on the couch with and at dinner with and in the shower with and in bed with having screaming orgasms and then falling asleep beside, from the memory of hating Daniel and more on him trying to dig up any kind of acceptance for wanting something like a relationship with a man, at all. Months more were killed on them figuring out how to even begin to function as something that could be called “together.”

But they did get there. They did. Eventually. They’d worked their shit out. Ten years and six to ten odd months later. Depending on who's counting.

He smiles at Daniel and squeezes his hand back. “You’re right.”

Daniel grins at him, all crooked and perfect. “I keep telling you that but you don’t listen.”

“I listen.”

“Do you though?” Johnny cocks an eyebrow and Daniel shakes his head. “So, we’ll go. We’ll figure it out when we’re ready.”

“No, it’s okay.” He puts his other hand around Daniel’s. “I’m okay.”

“You sure?” Daniel asks which is fair because he doesn’t sound sure.

But he is.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

There’s a knock on the door, a standard doctor’s office tap-tap of warning before the door opens and a dirty blonde woman in business casual wear about their age who has got to be the platonic ideal of the Beach Boys’ California girl steps in. She’s carrying a binder and is beaming at them.

“I’m so sorry for the wait. Hi, I’m Emily Sullivan." She extends a hand to each of them. "I’m your resource counselor. Please call me Emily. It’s so great to meet you both.”

Daniel rises to his feet because his mother raised him right and shakes her hand. “Same. I’m Daniel LaRusso. This my-” The pause is brief, so brief that only it could be mistaken for a breath but that’s not what it is and Johnny knows it. It’s Daniel trying to navigate his vocabulary for something that encompasses what they are to each other but doesn’t cross the lines they spend every day staying just on the right side of in order to live the life they want. He lands on, “Other half, Johnny Lawrence.”

And well, Johnny has to stand after that doesn’t he? If he’s going to be Daniel’s other half he has to put in just as much effort and energy as Daniel. It’s the least he can do or he can take the out and leave. And he’s not leaving.

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Absolutely,” Emily agrees, shaking his hand. She’s got a good grip for a chick and Johnny’s esteem for her goes up, just a little. “Let's have a seat and get right down to it. I know this can be as stressful a situation as it is exciting and I’m here to help with that.”

They sit back down, with Emily in the chair across from them and the binder open on the coffee table between them. “This is just an informational session so let me tell you what we do here and then you guys can tell me what you’re looking for. And please, stop me at any point with questions okay?” Johnny doesn’t know if she sees him nod before launching into a spiel that could put Daniel’s wheeling and dealing to shame on his best day.

There’s a lot. There’s more than he can handle and most of it is tangled up in science lingo he really can’t parse out. Daniel actually asks if he can take notes after about a minute which makes Emily positively glow and she pulls out a little note pad and pen that both have Premier Pacific branding on them.

Daniel takes both items eagerly and Johnny can’t help but laugh at him. “Nerd.”

“You’ll thank me for it later.”

She slows down once Daniel starts taking notes like they’re back in high school but that doesn’t make it any easier for Johnny to follow. There’s talk about gestation and eggs and sperm and it’s so much. He digs his knuckle into his eyebrow again because that headache is getting worse than it was just a few minutes earlier.

When she gets to her grand finale, Emily sits back, pleased, and declares, “And that’s the basics. I’m here to act as your liaison to help you understand your options as you’re deciding how you want to build your family.”

And really, that’s too much. Johnny’s run out of what patience he scraped together for Daniel because nowhere in this whole song and dance did they bring up the one thing he wanted to know - what the hell they were thinking taking this appointment from Sid in the first place.

“How we want?” He grits his teeth and clenches and unclenches his hand. Open and closed. Open and closed. “Miss, listen, did you look at our chart? My narcissistic step-dad threw his credit card at you and your bosses let him. There’s no ‘us’ in this circus.”

“Johnny…” Daniel says softly, worried again, and a little embarrassed.

Johnny hates that he’s done that to Daniel but he just couldn’t stop himself. That he hasn’t said something truly awful is the best he can do here. He’s trying, okay? He’s not running and he isn’t yelling. He’s doing his best.

“Mr. Lawrence, I think there’s been a bit of a miscommunication.” She smiles at him, soft and genuine and so concerned that it’s absolutely toxic. “How about you tell me what _you_ think is happening and we go from there?”

She’s so calm, so level and balanced in her response that Johnny doesn’t actually know what to do, how to answer the question because he doesn’t really know what’s happening. Since the moment Sid appeared at the work his life has been spiraling out of control into something he doesn’t recognize or understand and now he’s here, in this too goddamn cozy room being asked to actually articulate what he thinks is going on. There’s too many threads and none of them tie together right and none of them are about him. They’re about everyone else.

Johnny doesn’t know how to say any of that. He tries. He feels like all he does is try, all the time, every day, and especially right this second, but he’s opening his mouth and nothing comes out.

Daniel’s hand lands on his knee and tightens, just so and everything racing through Johnny comes to a stand still. Daniel doesn’t touch him like that in front of people. Other people’s partners do. Oscar’s wife will pat his arm and Kyle’s girlfriend takes him by the elbow at parties but Daniel doesn’t do this. He used to try but he stopped after the fourth or fifth time Johnny pulled away. Johnny doesn’t pull away now. He can’t. He doesn’t want to.

“I-“ he tries but that’s not right either. He feels like he’s sinking, falling. He looks down and sees Daniel’s hand still on his knee. He won’t land too hard. He can’t. He’s got a tether. That’s the point of all this, right? Yeah. Right.

He licks his lips and tries again. “My mom’s dying.”

“Oh,” Emily breathes. “I’m so sorry.” And she looks like she means it. She probably does but really, that’s not what he’s trying to say.

“It’s fine. She’s been dying for years. She’ll probably be dying for a few more years. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.” Daniel squeezes his knee again. “Johnny, you don’t have to say that it’s fine.”

“It is though. It’s fine.” It’s fine and it’ll be fine right up until its not and he has zero plans to deal with it until it’s not fine anymore. At which point, he won’t be fine and he’ll be too busy dealing with it to worry about how not fine he is. So, for now, it’s fine. His mom is dying, Johnny is used to it, and he is fine. “But it’s happening. And my stepdad’s son of a bitch but he loves her, always has, and he wants her to be happy. He’ll basically do anything to make her happy and all she wants is for me to have kids. So he set this whole thing up,” he waves a hand at the room. “And told her about this like it was my idea but it’s made her so happy.” He turns and looks at Daniel. “You haven’t seen her. She looks- she looks so much better. And the way she talks since then. I’ve been trying forever to get her to deal with her denial and now all of a sudden she’s asking when we’re getting married.”

Daniel’s grip on his knee becomes a vice. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey babe, Mom thinks we’re having a baby so she’s not telling me to find a nice girl every time I see her anymore and is asking about a venue for our big day instead.’” He snorts. “Come on.”

“Well, you could have said something.”

Johnny shrugs. There was no fucking way to say that to Daniel. He didn’t want to bring up the topic of marriage because that wasn’t a thing they could have. Marriage, kids, those weren’t things they could have. Except, here they are. “But Daniel wants kids too. And, Jesus, I don’t know. So, now we’re here.”

“You are.” She leans in like the guidance counselors used to. “And would you mind terribly if I was honest with you, Mr. Lawrence?”

Johnny waves his hand. He’s tired and his head hurts. He doesn’t really have the energy for polite bullshit.

“Your name is on the appointment. You are our patient. I didn’t make the appointment and I honestly have no idea how this appointment was made without your knowledge but when there is a difference between the person receiving services and the guarantor of payment, that does not entitle the payor to information about patient care. Your confidentiality and independence from anyone else is protected. That’s not because of our practice choices, that’s the federal law we’re required to follow so we can keep the lights on. That’s what was in the HIPAA paperwork you signed before you came back here."

Johnny doesn't remember signing anything that said that but all the paperwork had been lost in the static snow. So, he'd have to take her world for it. 

"If you want to change anything, including asking Mr. LaRusso here to leave and not come back, then you can. No questions asked. You’re our patient, no one else, which means that I and everyone else at Premier Pacific are here to take care of you.” Emily sits back and her face goes hard, like the Old Man’s does every so often, when he sees something that goes against that ever so rigid moral compass of his. “And to be perfectly honest with you, I’m disturbed to hear that this was arranged without your knowledge. There are going to be some very serious conversations with our front desk staff when we’re done here because that shouldn’t have happened at all.”

“I- What? No.” Panic shoots through Johnny like fire. Shit. He ruins everything he touches. Why? Why is he like this? “Listen. Sid probably lied to them. So you don’t need to do that. I’m not a snitch, alright? No one needs to get fired or anything. It’s fine.”

Emily sighs and rubs her temple. It’s the first remotely normal crack in her business chic armor Johnny’s seen her do since she walked in.

“It’s not actually. What happened is illegal and could put our entire practice and our patients at risk. If your stepfather did lie and our booking staff were manipulated, then we need to know what happened so we can figure out what to watch out for in the future. If they weren’t, we need to know that for the safety of our patients as well. I know this may not have occurred to you, Mr. Lawrence, but while this may not seem like a big deal to you, some very vulnerable people come here. If something like this can happen to you, it can happen to them and frankly, it’s unacceptable under any circumstances even if you don’t feel it was a problem for you.” She takes a deep breath and visibly gathers herself. And just like that, the perfect professional is back. “So while I appreciate your concern, please understand that this really is a safety issue, not something I’m going to chase down to punish a coworker for.”

“Right. Okay. That makes sense I guess.” He never really thought about it before. He’s only been to the hospital with his mom and it’s always been him and Sid and there’s never been any question about information there. It just…is.

“Do you want me to ask Mr. LaRusso to step out?”

“What? No. Why would you do that?”

“Because I want you to understand your right to confidentiality and to use it if you need it, Mr. Lawrence. So we can, if you like.”

“No. I told you already. Daniel’s the reason I’m here.” He turns and looks at Daniel. “There’s no point in me being here if you’re not here.

Daniel smiles at him, bright and thin and only a little sad. “Likewise.”

He covers Daniel's hand on his knee right in front of her. The falling feeling is back but so is the feeling of being tethered, more so because it's not just Daniel holding him. He's holding back. He hangs on to Daniel's hand so tight it has to hurt for a moment that feels like forever before relaxing his grip and turning back to Emily. “Okay. So he stays.”

Emily lets out another sigh but this one is kind of soft. It draws both their attention and she taps her fingers back on the open pages of the binder. “Alright. Great. I think that’s a solid place to start. Do either of you have any questions?”

“Yeah, I’ve got one.” Johnny says, because if this is all getting squared away with Sid about to be cut out of the info loop, there’s a pretty big one they may have to deal with real soon. “How much does all this crap cost?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Johnny is mildly to moderately dissociated at various points throughout this chapter. He and Daniel do not recognize the situation as disassociation and call it "zoning out." 
> 
> Additionally Johnny discusses his mother's terminal illness in more detail than previously in this fic though it is still relatively mild.


	7. The Flower That Blooms In Adversity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left a review. You inspire me so much you dont even know. Huge thank to storiesofmylife for the support. Couldn't do this without you.

Johnny can’t stop smacking the side of his leg with the little notebook Daniel got from Emily. Thwap. What. Thwap. The. Thwap. Fuck.

Daniel moving around their tiny kitchen making stir-fry like this afternoon hadn’t happened and Johnny keeps hitting his leg in time to the rhythm of that thought. What. The. Fuck.

“You like ginger in your stir-fry right? I can never remember who doesn’t like it - you or Ma.”

Thwap and then pause because he has to actually respond now. “Ginger’s fine.”

“Then it must be Ma. Probably something with the acid reflux?”

“Mm.”

“You alright?”

“Do you really wanna talk while you’re cooking?”

“Yeah. I’m good. You’re the one that can’t multitask in a kitchen, Johnny.” He waves his wooden spoon around as if gesturing at some kind of epic landscape rather than the economy they make do with. “This is my kingdom.”

“Okay.” He hits his leg with the notebook again. Again. And again. What. The. Fuck. And then it just bursts out of him. “This kids thing, we can’t fucking afford this.”

Daniel doesn’t look away from the stove and definitely hears him. He just stirs the wok, because Johnny has regular sex with the kind of asshole who owns a wok and so now he knows what a wok is too, and says placidly, “This is the first day. We just went to see.”

Thwap. Thwap. Thwap. And then, finally, because his body is literally incapable of holding it in one goddamn second longer, “What the fuck?”

“Johnny?”

“Later days aren’t gonna change the- Daniel. Babe, this shit?” He holds up the book. Daniel glances at it for a second before returning his attention to the food but yeah, he’s been heard. “Your math’s like…it’s a quarter million dollars.” Those last three words barely make it out because god, that’s just…it’s so fucking much money.

He’s making fifteen bucks an hour on site, twenty-two-fifty on the rare occasion a job calls for overtime but that’s still less than thirty-five grand a year. Daniel’s doing significantly better at the dealership. He’s their top earner and it’s, well, they don’t talk about money. But they both grew up dirt poor so they keep every bank statement, every pay stub and Johnny’s looked. It’s good. Almost twice what he brings in. But there’s a reason they’re living like college kids on Johnny’s take-home and not the way all Daniel’s coworkers are, in a nice house with nice cars and in a nice neighborhood.

Daniel’s putting every penny he makes in the bank so he can get out of that place and start something of his own. He’s got this silly idea for a dealership where people get one of those little trees with their car and Johnny knows the whole thing is just so he’ll have an excuse to work in the garden with the Old Man on company time. It’s clever though, the kind of stupid shtick that assholes fall for and Daniel’s so close. It’s inches away. A year, maybe a little more. But if they throw this whole surrogacy thing into the mix? Jesus, it’ll never happen. Daniel will be trapped in that goddamn dealership until the day he dies and he’s so much better than that.

“I’m aware. It’s my math.” Daniel says without even blinking. He just keeps cooking. 

“Then you’re aware that we can’t do this. We can’t.”

Disappointment flashes over Daniel’s face before he replaces it with a careful mask of consideration, a sign that he’s listening but Johnny sees it. He knows what Daniel looks like when he’s hurting. He’s a goddamn world expert in this man’s pain because it’s basically always his fault.

“Look, I’m not saying I don’t want to. Okay? Don’t fucking do that. I’m saying we cannot. Because that’s more money that either of us is gonna make in our lifetime. It’s obscene.”

And it makes him breathlessly angry that Sid just dropped his black card and walked away. Literally breathless. He has to grip the edge of the coffee table and take a few of those deep zen breaths because Daniel actually wants this and, okay. So maybe Johnny isn’t totally against the idea of Daniel with a little kid, maybe a boy with his big eyes and thick dark hair following Daniel around the Old Man’s backyard doing chores and terrorizing the goldfish with Johnny there, somehow. That’s the part he has a hard time imagining. 

He can’t stand that it’s not something he can just give Daniel even if the desire to do so is building like a snowball being rolled down a slope in Vail. Yet Sid just wrote it off like it was nothing. Less than nothing. To him, this whole thing was yet another thing he would buy Johnny to appease his mother and nothing more and Johnny wants to choke on how goddamn unfair that is.

“We can figure it out,” Daniel says with a shrug. “But we don’t have to do anything today. There’s other things and there’s no rush.”

Like Daniel wasn’t screaming at him in the living room, literally yesterday. “Bullshit. You’re like that chick from My Cousin Vinny I’m waiting for you to start shouting about your biological clock any second.”

Daniel smiles down at the stove. “Great movie.”

Jesus. Every goddamn time. How does he end up in this trap every time? “You only like it cause the cousin looks like you.”

“Like I said, great movie.” He holds out the spoon. “Taste this.”

“This isn’t going to distract me.” Johnny declares, pushing off the counter. “We’re not done.”

“No but I need to know if the stir fry is so get the hell over here.”

He goes because Daniel asked and also because he’s starving and it smells amazing. He’s not particularly strong that way. It’s good, which is no surprise. Daniel’s a great cook. Thank god one of them is because Johnny can barely scramble eggs. He hums in approval and Daniel turns off the stove. 

They grab bowls because that’s how Daniel insists this is supposed to be eaten but he stopped trying to make Johnny learn how to use chopsticks years ago. He likes eating on the floor though and never fights Daniel on that so they settle across from each other in the living room, feet touching under the coffee table, and eat in silence for a while.

Johnny’s seriously considering letting it all go. It’s finally the weekend. They’ve sorted the whole thing out and they’re done. They’re finally done. Eating like this in easy quiet, it feels like they’re back to what’s normal for them.

So of course, Daniel opens his mouth to stir shit back up. “I’ve been thinking about it, the money thing, and I’ve got a decent chunk of that saved we could use. If we wanted to.”

“Wanted to what?”

“Have a baby.”

Johnny stares at him. It’s jarring as fuck to hear it put that way, from Daniel’s mouth for one thing. It makes it so _real_ that he has to just sit with the thought for a second because yeah, that is a lot.

The next he actually processes what it is they’re discussing and it brings everything else to a screeching halt. “Wait. Wait, hang on.” He shakes his head. “Is this money you’re talking about, is it separate from the dealership money?”

Daniel’s cheeks flush and he casts his eyes very purposefully down to his food, all of a sudden digging around for something in the bowl with the metal chopsticks he actually spent money on with single-minded focus.

“Daniel?”

Daniel doesn’t look at him. He just keeps digging in his bowl. He must be looking for the meaning of life in there. Who knew it was in the bottom of a plastic bowl from Kmart?

“Daniel!”

He looks up finally and glares back at Johnny. “What?”

“You’re not talking about the dealership money?”

His jaw sets, tight and determined. Johnny knows that face. That face is in half his fantasies and most of his nightmares. That face means that Daniel is not going to let shit go, even if it kills him. 

“So what if I am?”

“Then I’d have to wonder if you hit your head in the last six hours and didn’t tell me or if you just turned stupid. Jesus.”

“Well, fuck you.”

“No, fuck you, Daniel. We’re not using the dealership money on kids. Are you high?” He leans over. “Did you get high without me?” He doesn’t smell like weed but they’ve definitely got a pipe and a dime bag hidden in the bathroom under the sink for special occasions.

“You know I don’t touch that shit unless you do it first.”

Which, is fair. Johnny’s a terrible influence on Daniel, has been from the literal day they met. He had to ask because it’s just so dumb that it sounds like something he’d say stoned. 

“Okay. So, TBI or just stupid. Which is it?”

“I am not stupid.” Each word comes out as practically its own sentence and Johnny doesn’t actually see his mouth move.

He’s never really respected a red light where Daniel’s concerned so he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t shut up. He just digs a little deeper, pushes a little harder. “But no brain injury.”

Daniel sets his bowl down and narrows his eyes. “Johnny.”

“So you must have lost your mind ‘cause you can’t possibly be sitting here, talking about throwing away everything we’ve worked for, for years, over something that might not even work.”

The muscle in Daniel’s jaw that Johnny knows as well with his tongue as he does with his eyes visibly ticks. “That we’ve worked for? That’s funny. I don’t remember you putting anything away, Johnny. That’s your money?” He drops the chopsticks and leans forward so he can be mad at Johnny from a better vantage point. 

Fine. Let him. 

“Yeah, it is. It’s my money that keeps the lights on and pays for hot water and covers the rent so that you can squirrel that nut away like we talked about. Like we planned. So it is mine because we’re in this together.” He jabs his fork at Daniel and a piece of rice hits him right on the cheek. Good. Fuck him. “That’s what you said. That’s what you wanted. That’s why we sleep in this shithole with toxic mold in the tile and Louie the drug dealer down the hall. You said forever and I said okay and then we fucking went to work. That’s the plan so that’s what we’re doing. You don’t get to change the plan now without asking me.”

“It wouldn’t be that big a deal and we can always take out loans or I can get another job or something. I’m just spitballing.” Daniel hedges, looking for a different shot to take.

“No. You weren’t. You were doing that thing you do where you decide something’s right and then you do it but, I’m saying no. I’m saying fuck no.”

He can see Daniel starting to build up steam, ready to tear his head off and for once, Johnny's not gonna let him do it. He just can’t. Not this time. Not about this.

He reaches across the table and grabs Daniel’s wrist, hard, like they’re on the mat not at the table. “We can’t have kids that way, babe, okay? I remember being a kid in a life like that and we just can’t do it. Alright? We can’t.” And shit, that came out pleading and possibly a little frantic but he needs Daniel to get this. He needs him to understand.

His mom was in debt up to her eyeballs before Sid and they were always scared about money, always struggling, and she was so tired, too tired for him, too tired for anything but to go to work and come back and then do it all over again. Johnny can’t do that to a kid. It’s bad enough any kid he has would have him for a dad but he can’t throw that shit on top of it. Money breaks people, he’s seen it. It’s breaking them now.

Daniel softens a little though, gives enough to meet his gaze with warmth instead of anger and frustration. “You don’t talk about it.”

Johnny shrugs and waves the fork, like that will clear this old hurt and new problem out of the air between them. “It’s nothing. It’s over.”

“It’s not though. And I grew up poor too, Johnny. You can talk to me.”

“But it’s not the same.” Because it’s not. Lucille was a widow. She had her husband’s life insurance and she had her family and she had a diploma. She pulled her shit together because for awhile, she and Daniel’s dad were a team. They made it work for them, succeeding in a way that built something solid under their feet before it all fell apart.

Johnny’s mom didn’t ever have that. She was wrecked before she started and it wrecked Johnny, too. And Johnny can’t do that to that to anyone else, not ever. He can’t even consider this whole thing if it means some innocent little baby has to start out like him. He’s a bastard but he’s not a monster. He won’t be.

“Of course it’s not.” Daniel concedes.

Johnny hasn’t talked a lot about it but Daniel’s met Laura a few times and he’s had more than his fair share of run-ins with Sid and he remembers Kreese, when no one else does, not like they do. Daniel understands like no one else that you don’t end up growing yourself into the image of a man like that because things are good at home.

But that’s not the point. The point is that Daniel’s going nuts on him and he has to stop this idiot, right now, before he does anything too stupid to fix.

“So you’re not allowed to throw one dream away chasing after another. I won’t let you.” Johnny says and wow, if that doesn’t sound like came right out of the Old Man’s playbook, nothing he’s ever said has. It’s probably dirty pool, talking in grand romantic terms like that but he doesn’t care so long as it works.

Daniel deflates in front of him, sinking in on himself so the hit lands, hard, and Johnny tries to feel bad, he does, but he doesn’t really manage it. It’s hard to feel bad about doing the right thing.

“Yeah but- it’s just hard.” Daniel bites his lip and wipes his face with his free hand. “It feels like they’re so close. Like I could reach out and get them. Like I’m supposed to.”

Okay, there it is. Now, Johnny feels bad. He also makes himself let go of Daniel’s wrist because he’s just realized that he’s still holding it. He forgot to let go. God, what the fuck is going on with him lately that he’s doing things and not realizing it until later, after he’s already finished doing it? He’s really got to do better. Somehow. 

“You didn’t talk about any of this shit two weeks ago,” he offers but it’s weak, an excuse, It doesn’t do anything except be true.

“I know. I know it’s just…” Daniel sighs. “Like you said, we’ve been working. Other stuff, they faded into the background. Doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

Which to Johnny, sounds like Daniel had been thinking about the kids thing for more than two weeks. He’s never said anything about it though. So it could have been on his mind anywhere from a month to the entire time they’ been together. Jesus. Johnny doesn’t like the idea that Daniel could want something as big as kids and not say anything. For years.

“How long’ve you been thinking about? For real, this time.”

Daniel shrugs. “I dunno. Always? I always knew I’d have kids. It was just given. I want to - I don’t know. My dad was awesome, and Mr. Miyagi’s, well, you know. He’s the best.” He smiles as he says that, familiar and unknown with the way he smiles talking about the Old Man and basically never does because they don’t talk about his dad. It’s only there for a moment before it’s gone. “And I’ve always wanted to do what they did, for kids of my own. But then we got together and I- Yeah.”

Daniel didn’t finish that sentence. Johnny doesn’t need him to say it. They got together, and Daniel didn’t think he could have kids anymore.

He gave up on the family he’s wanted since they were at least teenagers because he chose Johnny. And Johnny just…let him.

All the liquid feels sucked from his body and he has to swallow three times before he can get his voice to work.

“You never said.”

“And you never told me about your mom wanting us to get married. So, ya know.”

“That’s not the same. That just happened.”

“But you didn’t tell me either.”

“It happened two weeks ago,” Johnny snaps.

That’s nothing. Two weeks is no goddamn time at all.

This? This is huge. Daniel said, always. That means this has been under the surface for the entire time they’ve been together. He just sat on it, and Johnny never guessed. He probably never _would have_ which knocks the wind out of him for a whole new reason. He grips the edge of the coffee table so hard it hurts and looks at Daniel who is shifting nervously.

“Would you have told me? If this shit with Sid hadn’t happened, would you have ever said anything?”

Johnny doesn’t want to hear Daniel’s answer because as soon as he asks the question, Daniel’s face changes. He knows and it kills him. He lets go of the table and drops his head into his hands.

“Johnny.”

“Fuck.”

“Johnny, listen-“

Johnny’s head jerks up as he laughs. “No, you didn’t talk so why should I listen. Jesus.” He tugs at his hair with both hands before dropping to rub the back of his neck with his thumbs. It doesn’t help because Daniel’s still looking at him like _that_ , the truth all over his face along with the fear of Johnny seeing it and resignation that Johnny would anyway. Because he wouldn’t have. God. “You’d have just sat on it. Forever.”

“It didn’t matter,” Daniel denies. It’s so weak and so utterly false.

God, when did that start lying to each other? Did Sid’s manipulations do this to them or have they always been on their way here?

“It’s killing you. I’m sitting here watching it kill you. Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter.” Don’t lie to me again, Johnny begs and hopes that Daniel can hear it.

“Okay, alright? God. Okay.” 

Daniel gets up because they’re really in it now and he’s not one to stay still for a fight. He starts to pace the small length of the living room and Johnny turns his back to the coffee table to follow him but Daniel manages to move and somehow doesn’t take his eyes off Johnny. It’s a neat trick.

Johnny folds his legs the way like he was back in grade school and plants one elbow on either knee, hands clasped in front of him. He clasps his hands and taps his thumbs together as he watches Daniel build up steam.

“It matters.” He walks to the small hallway then turns and paces back. “Of course, it fucking matters.” Over to the wall, back. “But I didn’t see the point in obsessing over what I couldn’t have when I was happy because it does matter, Johnny, but not like you matter.” Nothing matters to me as much as you do, except, ya know, maybe Ma and Mr. Miyagi. But that’s it. That’s everything that matters to me, Johnny, them and you. End of list.”

“Plus having kids.”

Daniel paces from the hallway then back to the wall and then again without saying anything. 

Say it, a mean, hateful voice that sounds exactly like Kreese in full sensei mode demands. Say it. Finish him. 

Normally, Johnny can resist that voice. But he’s tired and he feels like he missed a giant piece of Daniel for years and he’s fucking angry. His grip tightens, fingers digging white marks into the skin of his knuckles, and he says it.

“You picked me over having kids because that’s the fucking deal. You get to suck dick or you get to play happy families and you picked dick.”

Daniel freezes in front of the TV, struck. Yeah, Johnny doesn’t want to have this conversation again either but hey, here they were.

“Don’t fucking talk like that,” he spits, pointing an accusing finger at him.

“Why not? It’s true. That’s the cost of admission to this whole thing, Daniel, always was. You get your faggot membership card punched and that’s it: no marriage, no kids, no family, nobody but each other and maybe whoever decides not to cut us off if, we’re lucky. Why do you think I never-“ He stops because no, no, that’s not what they’re talking about. That is not what this fight is about. This is about Daniel. “If you wanted something different, why didn’t you marry Ali?”

“How can you- What- I don’t- “ Daniel sputters. “Johnny, it’s not that simple. And I haven’t seen Ali in fifteen years, what the fuck?”

“You know what I mean."

“Yeah. You’re under this delusion that I would’ve ever chosen anything but being with you for some reason, after all this time, because of kids that don’t exist yet.”

“No, that’s not- You wanted kids. You can’t just stop wanting something like that.”

“No,” Daniel agrees. “But things changed and now I don’t want them unless it's _with_ you.”

“Things haven’t changed that much. This is all- Jesus, Daniel, you knew what you wanted and you did it anyway.” 

_It_ being kissing Johnny back on that beach in Santa Monica. _It_ being letting Johnny back in every time he ran away scared. _It_ being not giving up on him when he absolutely should have, every time Johnny was a homophobic prick and a jerk and an monster who made him cry. _It_ being forgiving Johnny every time he fucked up and letting him learn to do better. _It_ being making dinner and touching the back of Johnny’s calf with his foot in the night and asking Johnny to move in with him and waiting two months before Johnny got the balls to say yes. _It_ being this, their life, them, becoming the entity that is DanielandJohnny instead of Daniel or Johnny alone. Daniel was absolutely insane for doing _it_ anyway.

“What the fuck were you thinking back then?” Johnny demands and he’s shouting now.

“That I was in love with you!” Daniel shouts back and Johnny feels like he’s been hit right in the solar plexus.

His own voice seems to shock him because Daniel wraps his arms around himself and looks down at Johnny but also vaguely towards the floor. He looks so much younger than he is. Johnny wishes he could just stop doing shit that makes him look like that, especially when he’s telling Johnny he loves him.

They both just breathe in the quiet of their living room for a terrible, silent moment before Daniel tries again.

“I fell in love with you, asshole. I was thinking that no one else knew me like you did or ever even wanted to try and keep up with me in a fight, let alone could kick my ass and make me like it. There's never been anyone else that kissed me like you did and I slept better next to you than I had since my dad died. But, yeah, fuck, I know. Okay? I know.”

He drags one hand through his thick, dark hair before coming to rest on his own shoulder while the other staying wrapped tight around his middle. It manages to make him look somehow even more vulnerable than he had hugging himself. When Daniel finally speaks again, his voice is just short of pleading. “You think it was easy for me? That I didn’t think about it before we started this?”

“Doesn’t look like it from where I’m sitting,” Johnny says because he is, as Daniel pointed out, an asshole. And he never knows what to do with Daniel when he dares to come for him like this, raw and open and so vulnerable. It would be less exposed for him to have just bared his throat.

Also, it’s true. Daniel always seemed so comfortable back then, like he had it all under control and falling in love with a man hadn’t phased him in the least. Johnny had been so goddamn annoyed by that because Daniel had never even been with another man before and he was fine. He was fine while Johnny's been with more than his fair share - more than was safe, God, more than he’d been with women if he was honest which he couldn’t be, most of the time - and the minute he felt something deeper than hot, cloying lust for another man, he fell apart. He’d been grateful too because at least one of them had had a grip on the fucking situation. Except they hadn’t because Daniel’s running a hand through his hair again and looks caught.

“Yeah, well, I did most of my freaking out at Mr. Miyagi's. You think I dug that koi pond for fun? Don’t answer that.”

Johnny clicks his mouth shut because, yeah, he kinda did.

“I spent that whole fall and half the spring going back and forth between tearing myself up over what it meant and taking every chore I could think of so I wouldn’t have to think about it at all. I repainted the whole house. I built a new fence. I fixed three cars. I only got my shit together because Mr. Miyagi threatened to kick me out for overworking myself and then after I told him-“

“You told him back then?” He'd thought the Old Man didn't know until Daniel brought him around, told him to his face right in front of Johnny. 

“I didn’t know what to do. It was a lot. You were a lot but this?” He waves at the space between them. “What it’d mean for my life? That was too big and I never even considered it before you. And there I was, considering it, dying for it but there was this big list of cons, with kids at the fucking top, and on the pros side there was just you.”

Johnny winces. That’s…fair. He can give him that. He’s not much.

“And I had to talk to someone and I couldn’t talk to my mom. So I told him. I told him and he-“ Daniel laughs and shakes his head. “He said ‘a flower grows in dirt but all that is remembered is if the blossom is beautiful.’”

“Okay but we’re not talking about gardening.”

“It’s a metaphor, Johnny.”

That is such typical Old Man zen bullshit Johnny can’t even handle it. He likes to talk around things before he gets to the point, if he ever arrives at all. It’s total bullshit and it doesn’t make sense most of the time. “I’m the flower in this metaphor?”

“No." Daniel rolls his eyes. "We are. You and me together. Love is the flower.”

Johnny winces again. “That is the sappiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Daniel squares his shoulders and puts his hands on his hips. “It’s not sappy, Johnny. It’s about valuing the product no matter what it takes to make it happen. The point is that it doesn’t really matter how it happens so long as once you’re in love, it’s good. And it is. It is good. Being with you was good; it is good. You make me happy and I know I make you happy too.”

He tucks his knees up to his chest and folds his arms on top of them. He feels prickly from the inside out and knows he looks like a kid. He doesn't really care when Daniel looks grey and sad despite all his defiance. “You don’t look happy.”

“Johnny.” Daniel’s voice goes soft around the syllables of his name. “Don’t be a dumb ass.”

“What? It’s true.”

Daniel tilts his head to the side. “Are you doing this on purpose?" 

"I'm just trying to have a conversation with you." Johnny says with a shrug.

"You're baiting me. Admit it. Things are good normally and you know it. I’m happy. We’re happy. Unless you got something you wanna tell me?”

“I’m not the one going baby crazy here.”

Daniel crosses the room and drops to his knees in front of Johnny so they’re eye to eye again for this. He rests a hand on the side of Johnny’s neck, a careful hold that he’s favored ever since Johnny let him that close and stopped flinching away. The curve of Daniel’s palm is a familiar fit like his oldest pair of jeans or the indent in his pillow and in the same way is made for him, specifically. His thumb strokes over Johnny’s jugular as he says, “But we’re happy. Right?”

Johnny hates that he has to swallow around the burn in his throat. This close, there’s no way Daniel can miss the bob of his Adam’s apple or the clicking sound it makes. He can’t hide.

“Johnny, are you happy with me?” He sounds worried, scared even and that just can’t stand.

He grabs hold of Daniel’s arm to brace himself for impact and closes his eyes. “You’re the reason I even know what that word means.”

Daniel exhales, hard. A moment later his forehead is pressed against Johnny’s. “Okay. Okay. Same.”

Johnny sincerely doubts that. Daniel was a naturally joyful person with a good life before Johnny walked into it, either time. He’d be happy without Johnny. Without Daniel? Johnny’d have nothing. His life is only as good as it is, as safe and terrifyingly painfully true, because Daniel’s deigned to love him back.

He got the better end of that deal and he knows it. He’s not gonna give it up, not ever, but he does try to make things balance out. Balance is so important to Daniel after all.

“I just want you to have everything you want, baby," he offers. It's all he's got. It doesn't seem like enough. 

“I know. I love you too,” Daniel says and rubs the side of Johnny’s nose with his own. The gesture is so soft that Johnny feels like crying. He grabs at Daniel with his free hand to keep from spinning off the face of the earth and catches his shoulder, solid and strong and the perfect place to drop anchor.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Daniel agrees, pulling back to smile at him.

Johnny can’t bring himself to submit to the impulse to climb into Daniel’s lap, no matter how much he wants to. He’s can only justify that if they’re fucking or about to fuck, but he can scoot closer, press his cheek to Daniel’s and bring his feet and shins against the firm heat of Daniel’s thighs.

Daniel pulls him into the hug Johnny can’t ever ask for and he feels better. Everything is better when Daniel is holding him.

“This isn’t how this should go,” he mumbles into the warm skin of Daniel’s neck.

“Okay. How should it be then?” Daniel asks.

“I don’t know," he admits. "Ours? Not this clusterfuck.”

Daniel rubs his back and sighs, a long heavy breath that sounds like resignation. “It’s ours. Anything we do together is ours.”

"Not screwing things up then.”

Daniel has no response to that. He just holds Johnny tighter and breathes.


	8. Let's Stay Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Lets Stay Together by Al Green](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COiIC3A0ROM)
> 
> Literally cannot do this without storiesofmyife and your comments. You keep me going.
> 
> Also? Note the rating change. Thats not a joke.

Daniel's got one hand fisted in his hair. The other has his arm behind his back in something just shy of a half-nelson. His scalp burns and his shoulder aches and he's got no choice but to lay with his chest to the mattress. His other arm is too tired to hold him up.

Johnny pants into the breath-warm cotton of their sheets. He can't see anything but the white fabric in front of him but he doesn't need to see. All he needs is to feel Daniel's cock pumping into him over and over, steady and strong, forcing out the scraping hollowness that leaves him empty inside. He's full and he's held and it's the whole world.

Daniel drops his face between his shoulders and groans. He sounds like he's been beaten but he doesn't stop rolling his hips, sinking in over and over. He sinks his teeth into Johnny's shoulder and Johnny hears himself moan like a whore. It hurts and the pain drowns out any thoughts that Daniel fucking him doesn't drive away. 

It's perfect. 

It makes him greedy.

"Harder."

"God, Johnny," Daniel breathes hot and wet on the spot he just bit a bruise. It's amazing and it's not enough.

"Fucking harder," he demands tasting his own words on the cotton under his mouth. "C'mon. I need it."

Daniel sits back and pulls him up by the hair. Johnny goes, his core burning as he pulls himself up to lean back against Daniel's chest. It's not what he really needs but it's good. He can tip his head back onto Daniel's shoulder and mouth at his neck, his jaw, his ear. He tastes like sweat and skin and sex and Daniel. Johnny will never not love the way that buzzes on his tongue. 

"Baby, I- I need-"

"I know. I am."

Daniel releases Johnny’s wrist and wraps his arm around his chest, holding him close and bracing them both before his hips snap up just how Johnny needs it. The impact of Daniel’s cock slamming home rattles his teeth in his head and knocks the breath from his lungs. His mouth drops open because every push in and stroke out tears away what little coherence was left until he’s a wordless moaning mess. Daniel’s lips are pressed tight to his temple, the only stable thing in Johnny’s universe until Daniel releases his hair to shove two fingers between his slack lips to press against his tongue in silent demand. Johnny sucks on them and that’s it. This is what he was missing and couldn’t even think to ask for. Daniel filling all of his holes at once until there’s no space left for anything else is the last piece he needs to lose himself. For a blessed moment, he’s nothing but the pleasure of hard cock and long fingers coring him like a goddamn apple.

And then he comes and the soothing rhythm transforms into a shattering explosion. He's sobbing out his orgasm around Daniel’s fingers, teeth clenching involuntarily so hard it must hurt him. Johnny can’t stop it though, can’t even think through it. He’s powerless to do anything but jerk and writhe in the cage of Daniel's arm and shoot across the comforter. 

He sags, spent, and Daniel begins to move to release him but he's not having it. He grabs Daniel's arm and holds it to his chest and somehow manages to force out, "Finish."

"Fuck, _Johnny_ ," and really is there anything better than Daniel saying his name like that? 

Yeah. Daniel fucking him like this, all oversensitive like this. Now that Daniel's not trying to take care of him, he can shove him back on his face and take what he wants for once. He's always giving but moments like this, when Johnny's sated and spent, Daniel gets greedy. He fucks him hard and fast and frantic leaving nothing for Johnny to do but go boneless and let himself be used. That feeling, the limp and blissed out state of useful pliancy is almost better than the orgasm.

Daniel choking out his name and coming, muscles gone rigid under soft golden skin and thick cock jerking inside him, is a whole different kind of amazing. It feels like winning. 

Daniel collapses over his back, wrung out, and heavy. Johnny hooks his ankle around Daniel’s to keep him close, inside, and drifts to the feel of their shared breathing. They lie there in a sweaty heap for awhile.

They’ve been fucking a lot lately, more than they have since they first moved in together. Johnny knows what it is - a desperation play on both their parts to drown out the nagging call of all their unresolved issues but frankly? Johnny doesn’t care. He’s well laid and he’s happy and miles of Daniel’s skin is pressed against his.

Daniel nuzzles the side of his face and Johnny turns into it. He likes the way Daniel’s lips brush his cheekbone when he says his name.

“Mm?”

“Do you hear that?”

He doesn’t know what Daniel’s talking about. All Johnny can hear at the moment is the hum of of the afterglow. Unless its the smoke detector alerting him that the pizza he had delivered has spontaneously combusted? He’s not going to worry about it.

“Johnny, seriously,” Daniel demands, going stiff against him. Johnny can practically see his frown.

So Johnny turns his head to listen and okay, he hears it now. It sounds like maybe he left the tv on when Daniel walked in the door? He’d practically leapt off the couch to pin Daniel against the wall and drag him to bed so he can’t remember. He also doesn’t give a single shit. “Just ignore it.”

Daniel pushes up on both arms and looks around. “But-“

“You’re still in me. Ignore it.”

“I need to trash the condom anyway. I can just-”

He reaches back over his shoulder and grabs Daniel’s neck, holding him in place. “Later. Doesn’t matter.”

Daniel hums and slumps back on top of him. That’s better. Except, Johnny can’t ignore it now, thanks babe. And is it getting louder, the sound of muffled speech. And then the banging starts, sharp and angry, fuck. Fuck there’s someone at the door.

“Okay that’s it I can’t-“

“Yeah,” Johnny agrees. “Yeah you’re right.”

Daniel rolls away and stops to drop the used rubber in their bedside trashcan as Johnny fumbles to his feet. He grabs a pair of boxers off the floor, he can’t tell if they’re his or Daniels but it doesn’t matter, and hops into them as he makes his way back to the living room with Daniel on his heels in much the same state. 

The tv is off. The banging is still going but now he can hear it, words, coming from the other side of their. 

“-up the goddamn door, you little shit.” Bang bang bang. “I know you’re in there. Your piece of shit car’s out front.” Bang bang bang. “Johnny, I’m warning you-“

Johnny stands frozen staring at the door. He didn’t even know Sid knew where he lived. White-hot agitation rushes through him in a flash fire followed by an icy dread that crawls through his veins and freezes his limbs. He stands there, paralyzed, until Daniel’s hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes. 

“I’m gonna tell him to fuck off.”

“Oh, fairy princess, you gonna tell me me off?” Sid calls through door. “Do it. I’d love to see it.”

“Baby, don’t.” Johnny says and it comes out barely more than a whisper.

“I’m gonna. Fuck him.” Daniel throws open the door and glares at Sid, eye to eye, short fuckers, the both of them. “Fuck you. Get outta here.”

“Cocksucker.” Sid drawls the same way most folks say hello. “That's no way to greet your father-in-law.” He flicks his hand dismissively in Daniel’s face. “Be a good girl, and go make me a coffee. I’ve got business to discuss with Johnny.” 

Daniel puffs up like an angry bird and fills up the entire doorway. “Sorry. He’s booked. Come back never.”

“Johnny,” Sid calls over Daniel’s shoulder, “tell your little bitch to move his ass before I move it for him.”

“I’d love to see you pull that off, man, I really would. Please. Go ahead.”

Johnny feels twelve years old again, powerless and overwhelmed and as bad as it is, he can’t fucking stand for Daniel to be on the receiving end of this. 

He grabs Daniel by the hip and pulls. “It’s fine.”

“See?” Sid drawls. “Listen to your boyfriend, sweetheart.”

Daniel ignores him, with that cool that Johnny’s never been able to attain and turns to look at him. “You sure?”

He nods and move back. Daniel follows suit and steps out of the doorway. Sid gives Daniel an ugly grin as he shoves inside.

Sid looks polished in his suit and shiny shoes compared to the two of them in nothing but their boxers. He stands in their home, taking the two of them in and raises a derisive eyebrow. “I interrupt something, ladies?”

Johnny crosses his arms over his chest. He feels absolutely naked and cold, all the way to his bones but he juts his chin at his stepfather and makes himself glare. “Yeah. We’re filming amateur porn. You wanna make a cameo?”

Daniel lets out after a short bark of laughter. He moves to stand behind him. He’s so close. Johnny can practically feel Daniel’s desire to touch him but he resists. Johnny almost wishes he would. 

“Ugh, Johnny, take it back. No one wants to see that.” Daniel says lightly, his hot breath brushing his bare shoulder and neck.

Sid rolls his eyes at them. “Zip it, sally. I know you think you’re cute but the grown ups need to talk now.”

“Nobody’s talking about anything if you speak to Daniel like that in our home, Sid. Show him some respect or feel free to see yourself out. You obviously know where the door is.” 

“Ooh, your girlfriend’s feelings get hurt?” Sid mocks and whole body aches under the strain of not hitting him in the face. 

Johnny squares his jaw and grounds his stance. It has to look ridiculous in nothing but boxers but fuck it. He's not having one more word against Daniel, not here, not on his watch. “Last warning.”

“Whatever, kid. Where’s that goddamn coffee I asked for?”

“Up your ass,” Daniel snaps. 

“Go find it then,” Sid orders and really, knowing him, that’s as close to decent as they’re likely to get. 

Daniel steps forward, brush Johnny’s shoulder with his and Johnny nods. “Go get dressed, babe. I got this.” 

Daniel doesn’t like it. It’s clear in the tense lines of his shoulders and back as he heads to the bedroom but he goes. Thank god. 

The moment he’s out of the room Sid makes a kissy face at him. “Aw. Aren’t you two queens cute?”

“What do you want, Sid? I didn’t give you my address.”

“I got it from your mother ages ago. The phone call I got from Premier Pacific, on the other hand, came this morning.” He folds his arms over his wide chest in a mirror of Johnny’s own only on him, it’s a threat rather than a defense. 

“Yeah? How’d that go?”

“What the fuck did you tell them?”

Johnny shrugs. He hopes it comes across casual. “Nothing you didn’t do.”

“So the chat I had with the very polite young lady from the fertility clinic about their policies and practices, asking if I wanted to schedule an appointment for myself, that had nothing to do with you?”

“I’m a fuckup, isn’t that right? So how could it?” Johnny can’t believe his voice doesn’t tremble or crack. It’s a miracle, a regular messianic sign. Amazing what anger can do, really. 

“Hm.” Sid narrows his eyes. “Your sissy doctors office cutting me out of the loop doesn’t change anything.” He takes a step towards him and hand to god, it takes everything in Johnny not to take a step back but so help him, he will not be cowed in his own goddamn home. He won’t. “You go, you splooge in a cup, and you give your mom the bratty grandkids she wants or so help me, you’re not gonna like what happens.”

Johnny stares at him. “You’re nuts.”

“I’m telling you how it’s gonna be. You know how this works Johnny, same as always.” He holds up both hands, one on either side like the scales of those lady statues at courthouses on TV. He lifts one hand slightly. “You do what you’re told like a good boy and you get a reward.” He raises the other hand. “You don’t, and I make you sorry you ever blighted Laura’s beautiful life.”

“I think you need to leave.”

“And I think you need to take this more seriously. I’m offering you a way out of this shithole, someone who’ll love you when that little piece of ass wises up and leaves you, maybe even a nicer set of wheels for one little thing.”

His skin absolutely crawls at the list of things he wants, things he fears. He hates that Sid can see him so clearly and knows where to hit.

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Johnny. I’m literally giving you the world here.” Condescension drips off every word and he looks around the apartment like he can’t understand why Johnny wouldn’t want to leave. “Why can’t you just say thank you and let us both move on with our lives? Why have you gotta be so difficult?” 

“Because we’re talking about a kid here, a person.”

Sid shrugs. “So? I’m telling you I’d take care of it.” 

And fuck if that doesn’t make his skin just crawl because Sid told his mom that too, all the time. Johnny was upset because he had to change schools - I’ll take care of it. They werent’t fitting in in Encino Hills - don’t worry I’ll take care of it. He want to take karate - I’ll take care of it. Johnny couldn’t bear to go to college because his life was one long waking nightmare - I’ll take care of it. It always meant throwing money at it to keep Johnny quiet and his mom distracted. The idea of that happening to an innocent kid was absolutely terrifying. 

“You can’t do that here.”

“Course I can.”

“What are we talking about?” Daniel asks, finally emerging from the bedroom in a pair of, yeah, those are definitely Johnny’s flannel pajamas that he’s had since high school; his mom bought them for him at Sears. His wearing his shirt, tugging at the hole in the collar Daniel himself made three weeks ago. He looks like an entire meal, the fucker, and it’s clearly a tactical move. 

Jesus, Johnny is in love with him.

“No one’s talking to you, sally.”

“It’s Daniel. Daniel LaRusso. We’ve met. But that’s okay, I know it can be hard to keep up with things like names and faces when you don’t take care of yourself as you get older.”

Yeah. John is so stupidly in love with him that even now, in all of this, exposed and freshly fucked and vulnerable in front of Sid, he’s smiling. 

“Hey.”

Daniel smiles back, toying with the hole in the collar. “Hey yourself.” He holds up a hand. “Brought ya a shirt. You’re looking a little cold there, Johnny. Not that I mind the view.” He winks and tosses it. 

Johnny catches it looks down at it. It’s nothing special, just a plain black t-shirt that smells like their laundry detergent and the specific scent of both their bodies together living in a space for years that has seeped into the fabric of their clothes shared back and forth that’s just them. Daniel brought it for him, without being asked, without Johnny even thinking about it because it was what he needed, because that’s who Daniel is.

Sid makes a loud annoyed noise of impatience then asks, “Are you ladies done?”

He grips the shirt with white knuckles, looks up at Daniel, and yeah. He’s done. He’s fucking set for life. Only one thing left really. 

“Marry me?”

Daniel blinks. He blinks again. “I- you- What?”

“You heard me, LaRusso.”

“Yeah I just-“ His finger digs at the hole and the fabric rips another half inch. Those big Bambi eyes stare at him, anxious and hopeful. “Johnny, are you sure?”

“I said it, didn’t I?”

“Yeah you did.”

“So? What’s it gonna be?”

That does it, gets him that giant Daniel smile that takes up his whole face and crinkles his eyes and makes him glow from the inside. Johnny knows he absolutely does not deserve this, not even a little but he doesn’t fucking care. Daniel is his. He’s keeping him. Forever. 

He can’t help but smile back, too pleased to be smug. Smug will probably come later. Right now there’s just joy, and the niggling bit of doubt that makes him need to double check, just to be sure. “Yes?”

Daniel laughs and it catches at the end on something that would be a sob if it weren’t so elated. He nods and there’s tears in his eyes and for once, Johnny doesn’t feel the least bit bad about putting them there. “Absolutely yes.”

“Get over here.”

They crash together halfway, Johnny’s arms winding around Daniel’s neck, the shirt still clenched in one hand, the other buried in his hair their mouths meet in the kind of kiss they used to have when it was new and almost painful. 

Somewhere outside the bubble of heat and delirium Johnny hears, “No don’t- oh Jesus, what the fuck.”

Johnny jerks back for one breathless moment to glare at Sid. “You need to see yourself out unless you wanna watch me give him engagement head in my living room.” And then to make it abundantly clear that he’s not fucking around, he kisses Daniel again and then sinks to his knees.

“Goddamn faggots.”

“Get out or I’ll throw you out,” Daniel calls, hands combing through Johnny’s hair just the way he likes it. “Or maybe you like it. Want to see the show?”

There’s stomping Johnny can’t see from where he knees and doesn’t care to. It’s accompanied by angry muttering punctuated by Sid shouting, “We’re not done, cocksucker!” before slamming the door shut so hard everything glass in the living room rattles.

“Hear what he called me?”

“Yeah. Asshole.”

“Nope.” Johnny rucks up the T-shirt to plant a kiss just below Daniel’s navel then tugs down at the waistband slung low on Daniel’s hips. “Observant.”

Daniel smiles down at him and sighs. “Johnny baby.”

Johnny doesn’t stay anything in response to him. He’s busy.


	9. All Happy Families

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” - Leo Tolstoy

Now that he’s had a minute - or a few days of happy Daniel plying him with mind-bendingly good sex every time he turns around really - to think, Johnny is starting to panic. It’s been happening slowly, and the orgasms have been helping to keep the hot stomach-clenching nerves at bay but it’s there, building all the same. 

He asked Daniel to marry him. 

He asked Daniel to marry him and Daniel said yes. What the fuck was he thinking? What the fuck was he doing? That meant he had to, like, follow up on that now right? Didn’t it? 

Shit. 

But he’s maintaining. He’s holding the fucking line, mostly by getting through the day at work and his mind blown at night, right up until the weekend. 

They spend the morning on Saturday at the beach because Daniel’s never gotten over the Pacific Ocean, not after fifteen years, and a couple years ago Johnny went to Newark with him for his grandma’s funeral and saw the Jersey Shore and honestly? Johnny can’t blame him. The place is disgusting and the Pacific is beautiful. 

Also, deep down, in that soft place that only Daniel’s allowed to touch, Johnny I a sap and he can admit that the beach is their place. Everything started on the beach. They first met on the beach, in the fall of his senior year, when he was an even bigger piece of shit and Daniel was a stranger who made him furious at first sight that he couldn’t begin to admit he delighted putting his hands on, for any reason, even the worst possible ones. He’s been knocking Daniel into the sand since the night they met. The beach is where they first kissed, first fucked. When they first got together, it was one of the few places they could go out together in public because even on the rare occasions when there are people who see them, who stare, they’re always too caught up in their own experiences to talk to two figures on the water’s edge. The beach doesn’t share their secrets and doesn’t ask questions and washes away anything they might leave behind as if they were never there at all.

And it makes Daniel happy to be there. He does weird stupid shit like practicing kata in the waves and kicks on the sunken posts in the sand. It’s absolutely absurd and Johnny’s happy to watch him with his feet buried in coarse wet sand while he goes through his routines occasionally throws shells at him just to see if he can knock him out of focus. It doesn’t usually work but occasionally it makes him squawk like the seagulls which is it’s own reward. 

They swim out in the cold water and Daniel wraps his legs around his waist and they grind against him. They kiss in the waves and Daniel pushes his hair off his forehead and asks, “You want me to take your name?” 

Johnny laughs and shakes his head. “Fuck no. You be you.”

“But I want us to be us too.”

“We are.”

Daniel licks foam off his skin and kisses him again. And then yanks himself backward so that they both fall under because he is a total dick. 

Johnny chases him out of the water and back to the car and pins him against the side of the Firebird. They fall inside like the teenagers they never were together and by the time they get home, they’re a mess all over again. 

He’s almost forgotten the whole reason he’s been stressed out when they stumble in the door though, laughing and leaning on each other, shirts half off and their bathing suit shorts still a little soggy. Johnny’s blood runs icy when he hears he’s mother’s voice over the answering machine, cheerful and unbothered, the second they walk in. 

“-to remind you we’re meeting at The Polo Longue tomorrow because there’s some big wedding happening at the Four Seasons that’s booked out the entire hotel. I don’t know. Anyway, make sure that you bring Daniel, we need to talk logistics for the wedding. Ooh, I’m so excited. Love you sweetheart. See you at ten.” Beep. 

It’s amazing how all the blood in Johnny’s been replaced with liquid nitrogen. He’s been frozen and he’s going to shatter into tiny pieces all over the floor if the barest breeze touches him. He stares across the apartment at the offending cordless phone base, it’s red light blinking cheerfully to inform them of the message they didn’t so much miss as get attacked by. 

Actually, Johnny’s kinda hoping for that impact now. It’d be simpler. And he wouldn’t have to take Daniel to brunch tomorrow.

“So you told her?” Daniel asks.

Johnny shakes his head and Daniel frowns, putting the pieces together. He doesn’t start yelling though so it could be worse.

“Huh.” Then he shrugs and works on the ties of his bathing suit as he heads back to the bedroom. “So what’s the dress code for this Polo Lounge place?”

Like that’s it. That’s all there is to it. Johnny follows because, well, Daniel’s gonna show ass for one thing, but also he’s having a hard time processing.

“You wanna go?”

“Of course I’m gonna go. She’s your mom.” He says like that explains everything and, well, if it were Lucille, who smacked Johnny hard across the face, once “for that cheap shot at the All Valley” before pulling him into a tight hug when Daniel brought him to officially meet her for the first time? It would. But Laura Weinberg is not Lucille LaRusso and never will be. 

“That’s not what I asked you.”

Daniel shrugs out of his shirt and steps out of his bathing suit tossing both at the hamper in the corner of their bedroom. He turns, naked and glorious and smiles at him, the big one, the one that makes him angry and stupid and happy all at once, and shrugs. “She’s never wanted me to be there before. So yeah, I wanna go. I’m not missing out just because she was a jerk before. Besides she made you, so she can’t be all bad right?”

Johnny’s throat aches. He should probably say something or nod or really, respond in any way. It’s too much. Daniel is too good to him, all the time and Johnny needs it more than anything except food and air but he can only accept it in small doses or sideways or in the form of attacks on the dojo floor. Loving Daniel is basically the single biggest, most terrifying project of his entire life that he’s constantly stalling on and fucking and up and having to go back to and try again be cause of moments like this, when he’s a messy ball of feeling that can’t actually _do_ anything. 

Daniel say anything at his distress, just ruffles his hair as he passes. “I gotta shower, Goldilocks. I got sand in places that no sand should get.”

Johnny follows him in even though he doesn’t really need it. How’s he supposed to resist? He’s only human and, well, that ass. 

The next morning, Daniel spends two solid hours getting dressed. He goes through a dozen different shirts, at least three times each, and tries on every tie he owns. Johnny sits on the bed, and tells him over and over, “It doesn’t matter. She’s not going to care what you wear.”

“I’m trying to make an effort here. So,” He holds up two ties - one a plain grey with a black diamond patter, one red with the silhouettes of little cream colored bonsai trees on it that his mother got him for Christmas back when he and the Old Man were trying to make their store work. “Which one?” 

Daniel’s settled on a soft black dress shirt and black slacks and he looks a little like something out of a mafia movie. It’s good. He really shouldn’t wear a tie at all. They make him look like three kids in a trench coat pretending to be an adult but since he’s already told Johnny he has to wear a tie twice, because he’s got to be presentable, the choice is pretty obvious.

“Red.”

“You sure? It’s not too loud?”

Well, obviously too loud, but it’s also the only thing about the whole ensemble that feels like it’s honestly Daniel. “It looks good. Just don’t tie it too tight okay? C’mere.” He stands up and turns Daniel by the shoulder, grabbing the red tie and hooking it around his collar. He ties a loose Windsor and stops two inches from Daniel’s throat, undoing the top button so the knot sits over the second one, exposing just a hint of his throat. It’s formal enough for his mom’s crowd but casual enough that Daniel looks like himself. “There.” 

Daniel smiles at him. “Like that huh?”

“Yeah. Looks good.”

“You gonna wear a tie?”

Johnny snorts. “No.” 

“Jacket?”

He nods. The sport coat, royal blue and tailored, was given to him by his mother as more of a request than a gift. It’s nice, nice enough that he can wear a t-shirt and jeans under it and the whole outfit will still look sharp. Every Miami Vice. It’s what he’s doing now - a combo of white shirt, favorite faded jeans and this nod to his mother’s preferences. 

They actually probably look pretty good together like this, Johnny pale and light and Daniel tan and dark. He won’t even protest if his mom tries to make them take pictures. Much. 

Daniel rolls up his sleeves to just beneath his elbows, showing off his strong forearms like a gift and squares his shoulders. “Okay. Let’s go.”

All that resolute courage seems to vanish once they’re in the parking lot. He keeps fiddling with his tie, locking and unlocking the door, adjusting the vents, all without a word. Daniel is never quiet. 

Johnny reaches across the gearshift and touches the bare skin of his inner arm. “You ready for this?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Johnny doesn’t know how ready that actually is but it can’t be very because Daniel turns on Car Salesman Daniel almost immediately upon stepping out of the Firebird. It’s devastatingly unattractive. His shoulders go back too far and the Jersey in his accent gets over-exaggerated even though he hasn’t spent more than a week at a time in Newark since he was sixteen and he smiles like wires are pulling his lips back from his teeth. Johnny knows there’s people who like it. Plenty of people. Daniel’s the top seller at his dealership after all, but Johnny can’t stand it. It’s one big show and he can see straight through it every time.

“Stop grinning like that.” Johnny hisses as the hostess leads them to his mother’s table. “You look like Cesar Romero.

“I do not.” Daniel says, frowning. Good.

“Yeah you did. I can hear the Batmobile pulling into valet.” He turns and gives his mother a less wide but just as fake smile. “Hey, mom.” He leans over and hugs her so she won’t have to get up. She doesn’t need to waste any energy on him. “You look nice this morning.” 

“Oh, thank you sweetheart.” She gives him a gentle pat on the back. Her smile is real when she looks at him. It’s real for Daniel too. “Hello Daniel.”

Daniel waves a hand, and goddamn, is he awkward. “Hi Mrs. Weinberg.”

“Oh, it’s Laura, please. Have a seat. Sit down.” She beams at him. “I know, I’m totally without manners. I’m getting better, I promise. We need to catch up, it’s been awhile hasn’t it?”

Daniel glances over at Johnny who shrugs one shoulder, because, well, doesn’t Daniel know him at all? Where did he think Johnny learned, literally, anything about how to interact with people? Because this how it's always been for him and this is where he got it. His mom's SOP: everything is fine so long as it’s not discussed. If no one talks about it? It doesn’t exist and that’s all there is to it. 

Dan“I- uh, yeah. I guess it has been.” 

“But now you’re getting married. So,” she waved a hand and waiters appear.

“But now you’re getting married. So,” she waves a hand and waiters appear and so do flutes of champagne. One for each of them, and they leave the bottle. It's Dom Perignon of course. What else could it be in a place like this. His mom lifts her glass in their direction. "I thought we should celebrate."

"Mom, should you be drinking?"

"Sunday is my cheat day, sweetheart. Nothing counts on Sunday. Now," she takes a sip then leans over towards Daniel. "All I know is that my son proposed. Come on, tell me everything."

Johnny digs his foot into the back of Daniel's calf. There's things his mother doesn't need to know. There are things she already knows and doesn't want to believe. There are things that she would never understand. Daniel's a smooth talker, but there are a million ways this could go wrong and Johnny feels like he's living all of them at once. 

"You know Johnny. He just says what he's thinking." Daniel turns and smiles. "Once I was sure he was serious, I said yes. Not much to tell. We've been pretty much attached at the hip forever, anyway, you know?"

She tilts her head a little and Johnny doesn't know if that's a yes or a no. But she does know. She's known for years. She's also been ignoring it pretty determinedly, waiting for Johnny to grow up, move on, get over this dangerous phase of his. To be fair, Johnny had been too, before Daniel and during Daniel right up until he wasn't anymore, when he realized that he didn't want anything but what he had. 

"Mom."

"Yes?"

"What did Sid tell you?"

"That you proposed. And I'm so glad you did. Now we can start planning the wedding. And as much as I know you're still stuck in your teen glory days, you have to know, I'm not going to let you get married in some hideous white or blue tuxedo." She waves a hand at them. "Classic black, both of you. It'll be just dashing."

"Did he tell you why he was even there to see it happen? What was happening?"

"He might have. I don't remember." She frowns, as if that much concentration made her head hurt then smiled at him. "I was too distracted by the good news."

"Johnny." Daniel says his name as a question and a warning but Johnny ignores it. He's already on this roll, he can't stop now. 

He doesn't want to stop.

"He was giving us a hard time, calling us names, things I'm not even going to say in front of you. Terrible things."

"It can't have been that bad." 

"It was. He called Daniel things I didn't call my worst enemy when I had enemies. Mom, listen to me."

She reaches out and takes his hand in both hers. "He's just old-fashioned. He doesn't know better."

"Mom," Johnny chokes out but it's pointless. He is going to cry, like a fucking kid, at brunch in front of all these rich strangers, and the waitstaff, and Daniel, because he can't be a fucking man - over _Sid_ \- like he's twelve years old all over again. 

"You're a very..." she bites her lip on the word, "emotional soul, Johnny. You always have been, since you were a little boy. It's... one of the reasons I've always been so worried about you." She looks at him then at Daniel, then back at him and the sad _knowing_ in her gaze makes Johnny want to be sick. "But that's over. You've decided and you're settled now. I can't change your mind but it's all right if you're happy. You're getting married after all."

God, does that mean she's always known about the way he felt off, the things that didn't click right, even before he tripped and fell into Cobra Kai? Did she always know about- about him? And never say anything? Did she leave him like this - alone, and scared, and hurting - with voices like Sid and fucking Kreese when she could have done anything? Literally anything? Johnny feels like he's in the Twilight Zone. He isn't in LA but some kind of terrible gray vortex that's a dimension of not only sight and of sound but of his malfunctioning heart. 

"Mom," his voice comes out strangled and wet, "please."

"Johnny, I'm sorry. I don't know what you want?"

Yeah, that's just the thing isn't it. Johnny doesn't know either. It's been twenty years and he doesn't know either. He wants her to leave him and he wants her to stop believing in him and he wants her to wake up but mostly, he just wants to stop needing her. He wants her to give him solace and take care of him and be there for him but she can't and she won't and he wants to stop craving it every time the man she's chosen hurts him, every time she fails him so completely. 

"Nothing. I don't want anything.” It’s a lie that tastes like bile and blood on the back of his tongue. He wishes he could hate her for it but for so long she was all he had and he can’t. He can’t hate her for anything but she’s his mom and she loves him all the way to the ground, even if she doesn’t love him the way he needs. So all he can do is take what he gets and let that be enough. “It's fine."

"It's not fine. You're upset, sweetheart." She looks so sad, so worried, and she won’t do a fucking thing to fix it and never has. 

Johnny blinks through the blur in his vision and he makes himself smile at her. He knows, from the way Daniel’s hand manifests on his knee under the table, that it’s a brittle thing. “There’s just a lot going on.” 

She doesn’t seem to realize how fragile this moment is though because when she returns the smile it’s absolutely radiant. “Oh, sweetheart, I know how that is.” She puts a hand on his and leaves it there. “And look, it’s the waiter. So, what did you boys want?”

Johnny has Daniel. Everything else he wants is too impossible for him to even consider saying out loud to his mother, especially not here, at a place so public people literally come to stare at each other like it’s a sport. 

So he asks for pancakes and bacon and calls it good.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from a fabulous fact about King Cobra reproduction: King Cobras use rotten plants to make their nests. On purpose. The decomposition of the plants are believed to help heat the eggs. King Cobra are the only snakes to physically construct nests for their eggs and one of the few species that guard their eggs until they hatch. I just thought that was pretty fitting.
> 
> This is my first fic in this fandom and as always, I am HEINOUSLY insecure. Comments and feedback keep me alive :D 
> 
> Hope you enjoy.


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